


Blindness

by gracediamondsfear



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Draco is an asshole as a child, F/M, For Me, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Harry Potter AU, Healer Hermione Granger, Hurt/Comfort, Longing, No Hogwarts, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, VERY BRIEF Pansy and Draco, What else is new, all that sort of stuff, blind!Draco, more tags later when it gets spicier, still magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2019-06-04 18:05:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 48,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15152687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracediamondsfear/pseuds/gracediamondsfear
Summary: Draco and Hermione grew up together in the Manor where her mother was a housekeeper. As children they were the best of friends until they started attending The Wiltshire Magic Academy, where muggleborns and pure bloods were taught separately. They slowly grew apart although Hermione always hopes to win him back. When Draco leaves to fight in the War for Magical Revelation he is badly injured and blinded by an unknown curse, but is cared for day and night by a mysterious nurse who won’t speak to him but refuses to leave his side.What happens when the ancient curse is reversed and Draco discovers who has been caring for him all this time?





	1. The Bronze Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short, introductory chapter to start. I'll be back soon, after I finish vacation :)

Their lives were intertwined from the beginning; two brightly colored waves on a graph, at times so close together that they seemed like one and at other times nearly repelling each other with their distance. Because when you’re a child you love who you love; whether they were descended from pure magic or humble muggles, you loved the ones that made you smile and held your interest and shared their cake and held your hand to keep you from being afraid. It isn’t until we grow older and the world outside encroaches upon our little bubble of existence that the dark and hearty vines of prejudice and money and gender start to creep in, digging deep and setting roots, driving us from those we once couldn’t be without. But the universe will always be cyclical. What comes around goes around, what goes up must come down, all of those little platitudes we’ve seen on greeting cards and coffee mugs. And sometimes just when we think there is nothing that could ever repair the deep and bottomless chasm between two people; the world takes it upon itself to build a bridge.

 

** 1983 – Wiltshire - Malfoy Manor **

“Could I bring Mione a piece of my birthday cake, mum?” He asked, shooing away the three glowing fairies that hovered above the chocolate frosting. “We could have a picnic by the pond and have fizzy water?"

“Certainly,” Narcissa said as she watched her son shovel the cake into his mouth with his hands, his pale face smeared with fudge as he kicked his feet against the legs of his chair. It was his birthday after all…no need to enforce manners this one time. “Why don’t you take along your new dragons? I bet she’d like to see them.” 

The three-year-old boy’s eyes went wide with excitement, his face breaking into a chocolate smeared smile. The dragons were a birthday gift from his Aunt Bella; miniature replicas of actual dragons made of copper, bronze, iron and silver. They stood still as statues when he set them on the table, but when he held them in the warmth of his palm they came to life. He could order them to breathe tiny puffs of white smoke or flail their tails, even make them roar.

It was the perfect sort of toy to share with his best friend.

****

Widow Granger was the Malfoy’s housekeeper. Of course the house elves did most of the actual cooking and cleaning; Narcissa had mainly hired her on to be her personal seamstress in an effort to keep her talent exclusive to the Malfoy family. The Widow was well known throughout Wiltshire as being the finest dressmaker (even though she was a muggleborn witch). Her stitches and seams were impeccable, her designs modern and original and she specialized in intricate, colorful embroidery that quickly became the trademark accent of Narcissa’s robes. She’d even designed an elaborate embroidered crest for the family's black dress robes; a silvery scrolled M set on an emerald green background stitched to look like the spread tail of a peacock, beautiful and proud.

She’d come to the Manor when Hermione was just a baby and Narcissa was happy to have another new mother in the house so soon after having Draco. The children were raised together, napping on quilts under the willow trees in the summer, playing on the floor by the fireplace in the winter, their giggles and cries echoing through the cavernous mansion, bringing life to its ancient stone walls. It was almost as if they were twins.

A strange set of course: one living in a spacious, bright nursery that overlooked the hedge maze, never wanting for a thing, the other sharing a windowless room with her mother in a suite just beside the pantry, all of her belongings packed into one trunk at the foot of her bed.

****

“Why won’t they roar for me?” Hermione asked, frowning at the silver dragon that slept in her palm. It had green jewels for eyes and paper thin wings tucked onto its back.

“Because I’m magic,” Draco said, taking back the toy and putting it in his black velvet bag. “You’re just a girl.”

****

 

 

** 1984 - Wiltshire - Malfoy Manor **

When their mothers were busy in the sewing room, Draco would show Hermione all the secrets of the second floor of the house…the stained glass windows in the nursery with wizards that winked and waved, the sunlight throwing jewel toned light onto the thickly carpeted floor. He showed her his father's potions work room, the family portraits and the library with a shelf full of books set just at his height with pictures of Dragons and Hippogriffs, bright red Phoenixes and dangerous Centaurs.

“I’ve never seen any of these animals in real life,” Hermione said, running her fingers over the moving picture of the Phoenix preening itself. “They’re so pretty.”

“My name means Dragon you know,” Draco said proudly. “I’ll probably ride one one day. Probably have a bunch of my own in a castle somewhere.”

Hermione looked at him; not with disbelief or with jealousy, but with awe. He didn’t know what that was, what it meant, being only four, but he knew how it made him feel. Hermione made him feel special and strong. Every word he said she believed.

She made him feel important.

 

 

** 1986 – Wiltshire - Malfoy Manor **

No one had expected Hermione to be magical. Widow Granger was the first witch in her family for seven generations on her father’s side and she couldn’t trace her family back to any of the pureblood lines that the Malfoys knew of and as such she was considered something of a…fluke of magic, a one in a million chance. And of course to the pureblood wizards she wasn’t really considered a witch at all but rather someone who had managed to stumble upon their magical abilities, someone undeserving of the status that being a wizard brought.

On the day it happened she was sitting with Draco on the dusty floor of the dungeons. He’d brought her down there to show her the frightening torture equipment that his father’s family had curated over the centuries. While on their tour of the chains and racks and shackles, she’d stood right beside him, her hands folded tightly behind her back, her mouth hanging open in horrid fascination. Draco knew she was scared and it made him feel strong to be protecting her. He’d just turned six after all; there was nothing he couldn’t do. His father had told him as much. For his birthday he’d received his first broom and had immediately taken it for a ride over the hedge maze, staying aloft for nearly five minutes before losing his balance and tumbling over the lawn. He’d also received a new dragon for his collection; a bit bigger than the others, made of shining gold with red ruby eyes. This one actually breathed fire when he held it, a tiny green flame that barely hurt when you held your finger to it.

Hermione sat on the cold stones and watched as the dragon paced up and down Draco’s arm, stretching and flapping its wings, waving its tail.

“It’s called a Ukranian Ironbelly,” he said. “One of the biggest and most dangerous.”

He actually wasn’t sure if that was true, but he also knew that Hermione couldn’t read as well as he could yet so she certainly didn’t know either.

“Why don’t you make them fly?” Hermione asked, picking up the little bronze dragon. Draco told her it was called a Welsh Green. It was lying still and cool in her palm and she felt her blood boiling with frustration and jealousy.

“Th…they can’t fly,” he said, picking up the silver dragon and making it roar. The gold and silver beasts stalked each other up and down his arm, tickling his skin. “I mean, real dragons can but these are just toys.”

“You can make them do other things, why can’t they fly?” She asked, shrugging and frowning. Her envy was making her angry and bitter. And it wasn’t just over the little magic toys.

“Because they can’t! I told you! Here, give me it,” he said, reaching out for the Welsh Green. She’d never doubted him before, never argued with him like this and it made him angry. He was angry and sad and confused. He was supposed to be her hero.

“NO! I’m holding this one!” She snapped and he shrunk back from her as her voice echoed off the stone walls. “You have all the rest! You have everything, every toy you ever could dream of; and a broom you can fly on and this house and I don’t have anything!” She was looking at the ground, sniffing up tears and when she spoke again her voice was small and shaky. “I don’t get anything like that. Not even on my birthday. Please just let me hold it for a few more minutes.”

He nodded and she closed her hand around the dragon. For a minute she felt lightheaded before a sudden tingling shiver ran through her blood.

“Hermione?” Draco watched her lower her head again and close her eyes. Was she going to cry again? He didn’t want her to cry. “I didn’t mean…I’m sor…”

She looked up at him with her brown eyes wide and sparkling and opened her palm. The bronze dragon uncurled itself and sat up on its hind legs.

“I...I can…” she said, her hand shaking.

Draco was dumbfounded. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was just a muggle; just a little muggle girl.

“Fly!” She whispered to the dragon, and before Draco could protest the beast unfurled its wings and jumped from her hand, soaring in wide circles around both of their heads.


	2. Mousehole

**2003 – Year 2 of The War For Revelation**

 

Hermione sat in the front room of the healing house in Mousehole, watching the cold grey ocean lap against the stone wall just beyond the front door. Two small blue boats were moored there, bobbing on the waves as the rain poured down, pelting the windows, blurring the view of the narrow street that lead towards the village. There was an apparition point just beyond the fish house on the corner but it had been days since they’d received anyone who needed help or hiding or some sort of convalescence. She wasn’t sure if it meant that the war was going well or that it was going so horribly that all of the wizards and witches in battle were being slaughtered.

Draco had left for the battle on his twenty-first birthday fighting for the side of Magical Secrecy. She could still remember Narcissa sobbing at the door of the Manor, alternating between sadness and anger as Draco told them both goodbye. It had only been the two women seeing him off. Lucius Malfoy had died in an attack by the Revealers, an attempt to strike down high ranking Purebloods who lead the side to maintain Secrecy and Hermione's mother had been gone for years. It was Lucius’ death that made Draco desperate to fight. That and his life long desire to be the hero in someone’s story; to be the knight wielding a mighty wand, drawing down lightning from the sky in the name of some noble cause. There was no amount of begging from his mother that could sway him and it made Hermione wonder, sometimes with a bit of awe, how he was able to harden his heart so quickly, how hearing his mother cry had no effect on his steely grey stare, her feelings, her love meaning nothing, his own emotions tucked deep down where no one could find them...not even him.

“Will you be riding a dragon into battle?” Hermione had asked him as she finished mending the button on one of his suit jackets. Her comment had been an attempt to add some levity to his decision but the meaning was lost.

“You think I’m a fool for fighting,” he said to her, his eyes cold, lips set in a tight frown. “Is it that you think I’m too weak? Too soft? Or is it that you think I’m a fool to stand up for something? For my heritage?” He pulled the coat from her hands, baring his teeth in a sneer she’d never forget. “Maybe if you had anything in your life worth being proud of you’d do the same.”

“Draco, I was only…”

“Save it,” he said, pulling on his black cloak. “You just settle in. Stay here nice and safe in _my_ family’s home."

It tore at her now to know that they’d left each other with such hostility, his words so cruel and cutting even when he knew there was a possibility he'd never get to take them back. Of course by that time he’d been cold to her for years but she’d always hoped that it was just adolescence, the standard behavior for all the boys she knew. She always believed that one day her best friend would return, the Draco she’d dreamed of marrying when they were both too young to know that something so scandalous would never be allowed.

 

**1987- Wiltshire Academy of Magic**

 

The Wiltshire Academy of Magic welcomed students of all magical backgrounds and so Draco and Hermione walked in together on the first day of school. Her mother had made her a beautiful wine colored cloak with a fur lined hood and she felt very prim and proper standing next to him in his black robes, his white hair slicked back from his face, smooth over his scalp. Before the door opened he took her hand and squeezed it.

“You ready?” He asked.

“I’m excited!” She said.

*****

They gathered all of the grade 1 students together in the library, only a dozen or so, and they stared each other down, sized each other up, whispering and watching. Draco and Hermione stood together near the front of the crowd, feeling perhaps a bit cocky at the confidence their friendship afforded them. Why did they have to be nervous? They had each other after all; the best of friends, nothing could stop them.

“Crabbe, Goyle, Framingham, Fordham and Malfoy, would you please come with Professor Haverford."

Hermione watched as Draco walked away, shrugging his shoulders and giving her a look of reassurance. It was a two story school with many rooms and corridors, perhaps they wouldn’t always be together. When all the children she’d called filed out of the room, the teacher who’d read the list out slammed the door shut and ordered the rest of the children to sit, four at a table within the library.

“The rest of you are, obviously, Muggleborn Wizards. Now don’t worry. You’re perfectly welcome here. We have found, however, that it’s usually best to keep like with like,” the teacher explained, looking them all over with a mixture of curiosity and exhaustion. “There’s no reason for any of you to believe that you’ll be anything less than perfectly adequate little witches and wizards one day. And who knows,” the teacher said, winking at Hermione and patting her head. “You may even find yourself a pureblood husband if you play your cards right!”

******

There was a break for lunch where there children could wander outside for an hour, eating and playing and getting used to one another. Draco found Hermione immediately and the two of them found a spot under a shade tree, taking out their ham sandwiches and bottles of Haskerberry Fizzy Water.

“What did you do this morning?” He asked, swallowing down half the bottle of water and burping loudly. “We already started working on potions! Haverford showed us how to make invisible ink!”

“We only learned about the history of Wizard Europe,” Hermione said, feeling a bit deflated. “Your family’s name came up. I guess you’re very important.”

He laughed and put on an air of haughtiness. “Of course I am. I thought you knew I was the most important wizard of all time!”

He was trying to make her laugh but Hermione only rolled her eyes.

 

 

**2003 – The Healing House in Mousehole, Cornwall**

 

The sun was setting and the view outside was beginning to fade into a grey misty landscape, all colors washed out, the sky blurring into the water as the clouds thickened. Hermione was exhausted, her body aching from her hours on watch, looking out to the apparation point so as to be first to raise the alarm for help if needed. In just two hours she would be relieved and she’d have six hours of uninterrupted sleep; something that counted for a luxury nowadays. For now she just rested her chin in her hand and sighed.

The light suddenly appearing out on the water seemed ghostly, or like what the muggles called a UFO. It was glowing blue, slowly bobbing against the horizon, growing brighter as it broke through the thick fog and rain. Hermione stood and opened the front door to get a better look as the light grew brighter, closer. It was a boat. A tiny wooden boat crammed full of people in black robes. Wizards. It had been an enchanted lantern that cut through the clouds. The rain was sharp and cold against her face, chilling her to the bone as she watched its approach, slow and steady over the waves. The single blue light became three as she made out other people holding up lanterns to guide their way.

“We have multiple injured!” Someone called out as they pulled up to the dock. “We need help right away!”

Running inside, Hermione rang the bell to wake up the rest of the healers before clambering down the path to the sand, her bare feet pounding towards the boat. Three wizards lay on the floor of the rowboat, bundled in blankets and cloaks. Two others sat, their arms and ribs wrapped with bloody bandages, faces swollen and bruised. Two healthy witches helped them out.

“We need a stretcher for the last one. He can’t apparate,” one of the witches yelled in her ear. The wind was picking up, the rain soaking through Hermione’s dress as her teeth chattered with cold. “He got himself splinched once already and he can’t walk.”

“Go get the others inside,” Hermione said. “The healers are waiting. I can levitate him to the house.”

The witch nodded and the group of injured warriors made their way over the sand to the open door of the house, now completely lit, everyone awake and bustling. Hermione lifted her wand and levitated the unconscious wizard from the boat, floating him towards her. He was bundled tight as a corpse, his eyes wrapped in white bandages, blood seeping out from beneath them, streaking down his cheeks like tears. It wasn’t until she brought him to the sand that she saw the silver and green crest on his cloak. A gust blew back his hood and she gasped as a shock of white gold hair whipped in the wind.

 

**1994 - Malfoy Manor**

 

“Granger,” Draco called out from the doorway of his room. “Hey!”

She’d been walking down the hall on her way to the library. His newly deepened voice calling her name made her stomach flip in a strange way, but she did her best to ignore it as it didn’t really matter.

“What?” She asked, turning only halfway and looking at him over her shoulder – doing her best to project an air of detachment as well practiced as his.

She was embarrassed to be walking around in her sock feet, her dress stained with a potion she’d been working on in the lab downstairs. Her face was still streaked with soot from cleaning out the fireplaces and she felt a bit like Cinderella…before all the good stuff happened.

“Make sure your mother mends these by Saturday,” he said, throwing a pile of damp, pungent Quidditch robes into her arms. “Tell her to try a bit of her weak-ass magic to strengthen the seams or something. This is the third time they’ve torn.”

“Of course, no problem,” she said, although she was biting down on the inside of her cheek to keep from telling him to shove his robes up his ass and fix them himself. “I’ll tell her tonight.”

He was standing there in the doorway of his bedroom in a pair of black pajama pants and nothing else and it angered her how she couldn’t stop looking at his belly, the little ripples of muscle he was starting to sculpt on the Quidditch pitch, the hollow of his hip dipping below the waistband of his pants. How dare he just stand there half naked like that? So casually, like he couldn’t care less. She turned to walk away, unwilling to suffer further humiliation. When he called to her again, his voice was a bit softer, lower.

“Hey Granger,” he said, touching her elbow. “That’s Draught of Peace on your skirt,” he said. “I can smell it.”

“Good for you,” she said, yanking her arm out of his light grip. “I suppose you’re going to tell me all about your A in potions this term.”

“No, I’m going to tell you to not let my father see you fooling around in the lab. It’s fine to play wizard when he’s not home but if he catches you, you’ll need more than a little peace to recover.”

He was sneering at her, but his words were sincere and as usual she was left in complete confusion. Insults mixed with advice, whispered warnings mixed with condescension. She hated when he was like this; like he remembered how they used to be and wanted her to be sure she knew that now they were different.

 

**2003 – The Healing House in Mousehole, Cornwall**

 

They set Draco up in a room on the second floor, stripping him out of his wet clothes and putting him in a pair of dry pajama pants, tucking him under the blankets to rest. Hermione pulled the other healers into the hallway and they spoke in hushed tones, hoping he would get some sleep.

“I’ll see what I can do for him, watch him for tonight,” Hermione said. “I…I’m a friend of his mother’s and I knew him as a child.”

“Who is it? What happened?” Another healer asked, looking over Hermione’s shoulder into the darkened room.

“It was an ambush in Somerset,” one of the witches from the boat said, coming out of his room. “They were wizards and muggles working together. He was going somewhere on his own, as usual, and the muggles attacked, beating him down. He got the upper hand but one of the wizards hit him with a hex, a curse. Something. We don’t know what it is but blood started pouring from his eyes and he said he couldn’t see. The bleeding stopped eventually but…well, you’ll see. He’s still blinded.”

“Somerset!” Hermione whispered hoarsely. “Why didn’t you get him here sooner? Why didn’t you…”

“Apparate? I told you we tried. His splinching wound is quite obvious and that was just going to the next town over. We didn’t want to risk it again.”

As if on cue he groaned with pain, shifting and coughing in the narrow bed, one of his arms flopping off to the side.

“Please help him,” the witch said to Hermione, touching her forearm. “He’s saved all of our skins at least once during this war. We don’t want to lose him now.”

 

**1996 – Malfoy Manor**

Widow Granger had sewn Draco a new black winter cloak, complete with family crest, a pocket for his wand and a fur lined hood to keep him warm on the walk to and from school. Hermione watched as she folded it carefully into a square and handed it over to her with directions to deliver them personally to Draco’s room.

“It’ll give you a chance to catch up,” she said with a weak smile. “I’m going to go have a lie down for bit. Maybe take a warm bath.”

It was amazing what parents missed as their children grew, thinking that things were just as harmonious and orderly as they were when they were five, thinking that they hadn’t been twisted by the influences of the world outside Wiltshire. Hermione hadn’t told her that she and Draco were no longer friends, that he treated her like a house elf, a dog, that he hadn't called her by her first name in months. Her mother had too much to worry about without her daughter’s popularity (or lack there of) being front of mind.

“Of course mother, thank you.”

She could tell as she approached Draco’s suite that he wasn’t alone. He rarely was anymore. Wherever the great Draco Malfoy went his little entourage of hangers on were sure to follow. Vincent and Gregory, a boy named Terrence and his latest romantic conquest Pansy Parkinson. Hermione debated dropping the cloak on the floor outside his room and simply running off but knew that she’d be scolded for days for letting his precious garment touch the floor. It was best to just hand it to him and leave.

He answered the door with a bottle of firewhiskey in his hand, his eyes heavy lidded and bloodshot. He was drunk.

“Hey there little house mouse,” he drawled, his eyes roaming over her old black dress, her grey stockings with a hole near the ankle, her scuffed shoes and dull hair. “What can I do for you today?”

“My…my mother finished your cloak. She wanted me to bring it to you,” she said, not wanting to look him in the eye, not liking the crooked grin on his face, or the way his school shirt was unbuttoned halfway, his hair messy, hiding half of his face.

“Who is it?” Pansy called out from across the room. She stumbled over in her slim fitting wine colored dress and high heels, just the sort of thing someone like her would think was appropriate for school. “Oh. Hey Henry.”

“Hermione.”

“What?” Pansy spat, as if horrified she’d even been spoken to.

“My name is Hermione. We went to school together for six years Pansy.”

Pansy was hanging on Draco’s shoulder now and he was still staring at Hermione with the strangest look on his face.

“Anyway,” Hermione said, stepping back and holding the cloak out for Draco to take. “She wanted me to tell you to have a good term at school. She knows you’ll do wonderfully.”

He took it from her arms, the smile gone from his face.

“How is she?” He asked, shrugging Pansy off of his shoulder for a moment.

The other guests in his suite started laughing over something, then arguing and Draco stepped into the hallway, pulling the door closed halfway. They were alone in corridor, standing too close for Hermione's comfort.

“She’s…she’s ok for now,” Hermione said, still not looking him in the eye. “She’s been tired and she said that her…her hands are getting a bit shaky…”

“Hey,” Draco said, the softness of his tone forcing her to look up. “She’ll be fine. She’s strong.”

“DRACOOoooO. Crabbe drank all the firewhiskey!” Someone yelled from inside the room.

Draco turned and opened the door, yelling at his friends to shut up for a second, but when he turned back, Hermione was gone.

 

 

**2003 – The Healing House in Mousehole, Cornwall**

 

She sat by his bedside, tapping her wand on her leg. The storm outside grew stronger, rattling the glass in the windows, thunder so deep and rumbling that she could feel it in her stomach. One of the other healers had offered to take care of Draco, to let Hermione get a few hours of rest, but she refused. She owed it to Narcissa to heal him herself, to let him come home in one piece, to give her something to hope for.

He slept fitfully, wincing and trembling; tiny, almost childlike whimpers of pain escaping with every movement. Unwilling to watch him suffer any longer, Hermione pulled a numbing potion from her bag so she could examine him more fully. She sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped an arm gently around his shoulders, pulling him up to sit forward enough to drink.

“I can’t…I can’t see…please…” His voice was weak, desperate, like nothing she’d ever heard from him before and she knew he’d be humiliated if he knew she’d heard him crying.

While she tipped the draught into his mouth her thumb stroked over the bit of exposed skin of his shoulder. The potion took effect quickly and she felt him grow heavy in her arm, a long breath exhaling from his lungs as he fell back onto the pillow.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you.”

He reached a hand out to touch her and she jumped back. Draco hadn’t touched her in years and now he was reaching for her – or rather – for the witch who had saved him. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. Even in this pain his grip was strong, sure. His fingers were calloused and his palm rough, but they looked the same; the same long, delicate fingers that could wind black hellebores into a crown while they ran through the garden or play concertos from memory on his mother's piano.

His hand fell away and she decided then that she wouldn’t speak. He couldn't know who she was. When she found the cure for his curse and he was able to see her, then he would know. Then he could chastise her or demand a different healer or leave without a word thanks, but until then she would be his silent angel of mercy. He needed her. Until he could see her, he would just have to feel how much she cared.

 


	3. Tears of Blood

**1987 – Spring Term Wiltshire Academy of Magic**

 

It soon became clear that while the muggleborn wizards were “certainly welcome” at the Academy, their curriculum was far different from that of the purebloods. On the nights when Narcissa would let Draco eat dinner with her down in the kitchens he regaled her with stories of Professor Haverford’s knowledge of Legilimency and Occulemency, how he was writing a book about the effect of certain spells on memory and feeling. She sat in wonder as he told her about the potions they’d created or the animals they’d transfigured into keys and goblets and hand mirrors. She drank everything in; the names of the spells, the wand movements, the recipes for the potions, all of them locked up for when she'd get a chance to practice herself.

“I’m sure you’ll learn all of it too,” he said, biting the tail off of a chocolate dragon. “Maybe they just want to make sure you know all the history and things. Not everyone grew up in a pureblood house like you did.”

They were sitting outside in the sunshine near the willows. It was one of the first warm spring afternoons of the year and they’d be returning to school after Easter holidays in the morning. Hermione had always thought she’d be desperate to return to school, to learn, to study…but now she found herself dreading it. She couldn’t bear another three months of sitting through lectures on the amazing feats and magnificent lives of the Sacred Pureblood families, hearing about the dangers of mixing their blood with muggles, the dangers of letting magic seep out into the “other” world. The sordid stories of famous halfbloods and mudbloods 'stealing magic' were told matter of factly, as if there weren't a whole room full of them staring straight at the professor, hearing themselves being insulted.

“We’ve learned a few charms and things,” she said, shrugging. “Alohamora and Lumos and all of the basic things that I already knew. I just…I want to know more.”

“You can always ask me, Hermione,” he said, getting up and brushing the grass from his robes. “I'll practice with you when I have time. Remember, I taught you how to fly my broom?"

"I fell into the pond."

"Still," he said, stifling a laugh. "You always have father’s lab and our library. If they don’t teach you what you need I’m sure you can teach yourself.”

His praise lifted her spirits. He picked up a pebble and threw it at one of his father’s white peacocks, laughing as it scuttled away, squawking in fright. Of course he was right. She was smart enough to teach herself the spells and potions he knew, and more.

But she shouldn’t have to.

*****

When they got to school the next morning his friends Greg and Vincent were waiting for him at the entrance to the grounds, waving handfuls of collector cards from Chocolate Frogs they’d gotten for Easter, calling him over to compare.

“See ya,” he said to Hermione, leaving her at the gate to walk into school alone.

*****

After a two-hour lecture on career opportunities for Muggleborn Wizards ( _housekeeping! healer assistant! barmaid! groundskeeper!)_ , Hermione was desperate to see her friend. Of course she’d made a couple of new acquaintances at the school who helped to make the days go by pleasantly; a dark haired girl called Claire and a quiet boy named Michael. But she could tell they were overwhelmed with the whole concept of being magical and clung to Hermione simply to stay afloat, not because they were particularly interested in her friendship. Still, she did her best to reassure them in the same ways her mother reassured her. Telling them that their magic was genuine, that they were worthy of having it and that being muggleborn didn't make them any less a wizard.

Still they weren't terribly close. It was her own fault, she supposed. She’d grown up in near isolation with only Draco and her mother for company and for years Draco had filled her life. She followed him everywhere, played with his toys, ate his food, swam in his pond, he pushed her on his swing. But when Draco went on play dates or outings with friends, Hermione was never invited along. She’d convinced herself that she was happy to just wait at home and hear his the stories of the shops in Wizard London or the beautiful cottage up in Skye, the Enchanted boats that punted along the Tyne river. But now that they were older she was old enough to know what loneliness was. She needed to try harder to find more friends and it was becoming clear that it would probably be wise if she chose friends that were more like her.

She sat beneath the pink flowering cherry tree with her lunch pail and watched for Draco to come out from the entrance on the far end of the school. When he did, she saw that he had his friends with him. Crabbe and Goyle, and a little dark haired girl that she’d heard called Pansy. For some reason her stomach flipped and dropped and she felt her eyes sting with tears, but she sniffed them up and waved, calling him over. If he wanted to bring the others she’d just do her best to be friendly. She would show them how smart and funny a non pureblood could be. He stopped talking to his new friends and held up a hand.

“Hey,” he said, jogging over to her. “Um…I’m…we’re kind of…um…I’m working on a thing with Crabbe and Goyle and it’s going to be super boring…” He rolled his eyes and made a face that she was supposed to interpret as dislike; but she knew better. He was just trying to make her feel better. “Anyway..maybe for the next couple of days you could have lunch with Cara and..”

“Claire,” Hermione said, pulling out her sandwich and a piece of chocolate that Narcissa had given her for Easter. “It’s fine. Go.”

“I’ll see you after school though, ok?” He said, raising his eyebrows, reassuring her. “We’ll walk home together.”

“We have to. We live in the same house.”

“Yeah,” he laughed, but his brow was furrowed. She could see over his shoulder that his new friends were growing impatient. Even more, she could see that he wanted to get away from her. “Anyway, have a good lunch Granger.”

She scrunched up her nose as he ran back to his new friends, the four of them settling on the lawn near the pond. Granger.

He’d never called her that before.

She didn’t like it.

 

**2003 – Mousehole Healing House**

 

She pulled the sheet back to reveal his torso, gasping at the painful splinching injury. It dug deep into his flesh, curving and licking across his chest and left shoulder like a flame. The foot soldiers had cleaned and bandaged it in the field but the white rags were soaked through with dark blood, seawater and mud.

Wetting a rag with essence of Dittany, Hermione re-cleaned the inch deep wound, pleased to find it quickly starting to shrink and heal, more pink now than angry red, but it would still take days to close completely and he would have a scar. The rest of his chest was covered in dark bruises, knots under the skin where his ribs were broken. She could see the pale lines of scars from old hexes, a muggle knife wound, his torso a grim map of his progress through the war. A whispered Episkey cracked one rib back into place but the others would have to knit naturally. There was nothing for it but to rest.

She’d put it off long enough; she had to examine his eyes. His head was wrapped in white gauze, dotted and stained dark blood. After moving him to the bed, one of the nurses had wiped the blood from his face, the tracks that ran down from his eyes like tears, so she knew that he wasn’t actively bleeding which was obviously a good sign. Again she wrapped an arm around him to pull him up against the pillows, carefully unwinding the bandages to reveal his face. He’d been holding his eyes closed but now opened them and she gasped.

“I…still…I still can’t see anything. Am I blind?” His voice was deep and hoarse as if he hadn’t spoken in months. “Did he blind me forever?”

“Shhhhh,” she said, patting his shoulder, guiding him to lay back down.

Even if she could speak, she wouldn’t have an answer. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. His eyes were entirely white; no pupils, no silver shining irises, just a milky white almond set behind his lid. He blinked and she could see the eyeballs moving in their sockets, desperate to find something, to focus on anything, but he soon gave up, closing his eyes and sighing in frustration.

“I don’t know…what it was. I didn’t hear what he yelled but there was a yellow light, yellow green, like sulphur. It knocked me back and the next time I blinked everything was black.” She could see his lip trembling, his brow wrinkled with worry. “What am I supposed to do? How can I fight if I can’t see? How can I…live…what am I supposed to do? What good am I to anyone…”

He sniffed and shook his head. A few tears fell from the corners of his eyes; tears of blood. Thick, dark blood that ran down over his temples and stained the pillow.

 

 

**1987 – Spring Term Wiltshire Academy of Magic**

 

For the rest of the term Hermione sat alone beneath the cherry tree, watching the delicate flowers bloom and fall, the little green fruits start to bud. Claire would join her occasionally but found that Hermione wasn’t very good company, always staring over at the purebloods having lunch under the elms. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to make any friends, it was just that she was so confused by the distance of her _best_ friend that it pushed everything else from her mind. Michael tried to teach the girls card games that his muggle grandmother had taught him and it distracted her for a while, playing Go Fish and Crazy 8s, but whenever she heard Draco’s laugh ring out during his “boring” project sessions, her heart broke a little more.

*****

She was quiet on their walks home from school and Draco knew why. He had seen her sitting alone on their lunch break. He knew that she didn’t have many friends. He also knew the truth about her classes. The grade two kids had told him that the muggleborn and halfblood wizards were taught differently than they were, intentionally kept back, only to be taught the very basics of wizarding life. Pansy and Greg had both said it was better that way.

"At least the halfbloods can stay in school till they're seventeen," Greg said. "Muggleborns like that cleaning girl at your house?  She only gets to stay to grade six."

“After all, they’re not _real_ wizards,” Pans had said over lunch. “I’m amazed some of them can do spells at all.”

Draco had laughed with the rest of the kids but he remembered Hermione making the bronze dragon fly above their heads…something he’d never been able to do on his own. He remembered taking her to the lab and showing her the recipe for Pepper Up potion and she’d made it correctly the first try. He decided not to tell her what he'd learned. She was miserable enough already.

 

He made his way down to the kitchens after dinner and found Hermione reading a book from the family library… _Basic Healing Potions For Beginners._ It wasn’t a book for kids, but she sat there on the floor, leaning against the bed, her brow furrowed as she fought through the difficult language and diagrams.

“Hey, Mione,” he said, knocking on the open door. “Wanna go for a walk?"

They stole custard tarts from the kitchen and went out to the hedge maze. Draco knew how to get to the small gazebo and garden at the center but he preferred one of the far western corners of the maze where two old marble benches sat under a canopy of vines. He’d shown her how to get there once but she let him lead the way around the towering Hornbeams. When they got to the benches and sat down to eat their stolen sweets, Draco reached into the pocket of his school robes and pulled out a black velvet bag.

“Here,” he said, putting the bag in her palm. “Promise me you’ll take care of him. I think he likes you better than me anyway.”

Hermione opened the bag and the bronze dragon tumbled out into her palm, instantly stretching and standing, its wings spreading on its back.

“Draco…this is your…”

“No, it’s yours,” he said, pushing her hand in towards her chest. “Besides, I can always come and visit him, right? And you can always come see the others. I mean...we live in the same house,” he said, mimicking what she'd said a few weeks before.

“Sure,” she said, staring down at the dragon that was climbing up to her shoulder. “Of course. Thank you!”

He hadn't realized until that moment how important it was to see her smile; or rather to see her smile because of HIM. It was something that he'd missed; making her laugh, making her eyes go wide in amazement. She made him feel like a super wizard and without her, he felt...less.

They were quiet for a few minutes, the sun starting to duck down below the hedges. They wouldn’t have long before Widow Granger started yelling for them to come inside. Hermione stood and brushed the crumbs from her dress and Draco jumped to stand beside her, the two of them making their way back to the entrance.

“I’m sorry I didn’t sit with you at lunch anymore,” he said quickly. “I just…the other purebloods, they don’t say very nice things about muggleborn witches…”

Hermione walked a little faster, a few tears stinging her eyes. She’d been insanely happy only a few minutes before. Why did he always do this to her? So the gift of the dragon had simply been to assuage his guilt, not because he wanted to give her something, not because he actually cared. A gesture to make him feel better...not her. He reached out to touch her arm and she snatched it away, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

“I just didn’t want them to hurt your feelings,” he said, but she was already well ahead of him, nearly running down the gravel path.

“Then you could have just told them to stop,” she said, hurt that he couldn’t work that particular solution out for himself.

 

 

**2003 – Mousehole Healing House**

 

Her darker suspicions about the war had been right; the side for Secrecy was being obliterated since the Muggles had joined the Revealers. The morning after Draco’s arrival there were ten more incapacitated wizards at the house, outnumbering the healers and decimating their supplies. There was no more room and no one was well enough to leave. Draco’s splinching wound was still open, his ribs still healing and worst of all he was still blind, his eyes leaking tears of blood every night that Hermione wiped away as he slept.

The other healers noticed that she spent most of her time by his side, sleeping curled up in the old grey armchair beside his bed, feeding him soup and water, cleaning his face and the wounds on his chest. One of the senior witches noticed she’d fallen asleep holding Draco’s hand.

“He means something to you,” she said, pulling her out of his room.

“No…I just…” she couldn’t lie. “Like I said, we were close as children. He’s an only child and he’s all his mother has in the world.”

“Have you figured out anything about the curse? The blindness? The usual Shadow Eye hex wears off within hours.”

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip and shook her head.

"I have no idea. I've read through some of the basic hexes and curses used for sight and nothing sounds like what he described. It has to be some sort of old, dark magic...something that isn't used anymore. Perhaps a banned hex. I just wish I could..."

The older witch touched her arm and smiled.

“If it happens that he's blind and still alive, that will be good enough for his mother,” she said.

“Maybe so. But it won’t be good enough for him,” Hermione answered, forcing a smile. “He’s a very…stubborn man.”

“Well, the fact is Miss Granger, we’re already full here and I know there are more casualties on the way. We're being forced into tough decisions. If he can walk, if he can eat and drink and speak then he has to leave.”

“No!" Hermione's eyes went wide, her hearbeat loud in her ears. "He can’t…he’s…”

“Perhaps you need a bit of leave?” The witch offered, her eyebrow raised, a small smile at the corners of her lips. “Why don’t you take some time and go get him settled. It may take some time to solve this puzzle and Mr. Malfoy should be at home.”


	4. Cottage By The Sea

**1992 – Winter Holidays – Malfoy Manor**

 

In the week after Christmas Hermione sent an owl to Claire asking if she’d like to come visit for a couple of days. Narcissa, sensing her loneliness, had suggested it, saying she could fix up one of the guest rooms on the second floor and make a weekend of it.

“There’s a fireplace in there, and you girls could stay up all night chattering like I used to with my girlfriends. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Her friendship with Claire had grown into something deeper since first year, but she still didn’t feel the connection with her that she’d once had with Draco. Maybe she never would feel that again. Perhaps those deep, earth-shaking friendships were just for children; children who felt everything to the extreme, who declared everything THEIR VERY FAVORITE or THE WORST IN THE WORLD. Maybe the hero worship she’d poured onto Draco had been nothing but a silly girl’s devotion to the only other child she knew. Maybe it was gratitude for his family taking her in.

As expected Claire was floored by the Manor, oohing and aaahing over the soaring ceilings and gargantuan library. She ran her fingers over the old polished marble newel posts on the staircases, introduced herself to all of the portraits, ignoring their haughty sneers, amazed at the names she recognized from their history classes. Even in the cold she begged to walk through the hedge maze and asked if they could feed the peacocks.

“I can’t imagine growing up here, somewhere so incredible!”

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” Hermione said, throwing bits of bread to the white birds that were kept in the enchanted greenhouse in the winter. All around them roses and greenery bloomed for Narcissa's arrangements that she kept on every table in the house. The air was thick and fragrant. The Manor even _smelled_ rich.

Of course she didn’t tell Claire that she lived in the servants’ quarters. She didn't show Claire her windowless bedroom next to the pantry or tell her that she polished Draco’s shoes for him and spent most of her free time alone in the lab, studying his old potions textbooks from the year before, avoiding the disgusted gaze of Draco's father if they passed in the halls. She didn’t need her sympathy.

They made their way back to the main house and went to the kitchen to fix hot chocolate and find the shortbread that the elves had made for Christmas. Unfortunately Draco was already there and Hermione found herself silently begging him not to humiliate her in front of her only friend.

“Hi Draco,” Claire said eagerly, her voice high and squeaky and nothing like she usually sounded. Hermione noticed that her cheeks were pink, her smile ridiculously wide.

He looked up and made a face of confusion, looking from Claire to Hermione and back again.

“Hey,” he said, turning back to the cupboard he was raiding. “Granger, did you take all the chocolate biscuits?”

“No,” she said quietly. “They’re in the other pantry.”

He rolled his eyes as if it were her fault he was looking in the wrong place and shouldered past both girls, leaving without another word.

***** 

They sat by the fire with their hot chocolate. Hermione had never been in this guest room before. Only that morning all the furniture had been shrouded in slipcovers, the shelves coated with dust. The elves had transfigured and cleaned everything to make it look like a rich little girl’s room, yellow and white linens, flowers on the nightstand. She wondered if Narcissa would let her sleep here sometime after Claire left. No one else was using it after all.

“I don’t know how you manage to live in the same house as Draco without going crazy,” Claire said, shaking her head and giggling. “He’s so cute.”

“What?” Hermione’s mind had been wandering, but this statement took her by surprise. “Cute?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed! Those eyes? His hair? I think he's the hottest wizard in school.”

She hadn’t thought about it. She’d grown up with Draco. She’d seen him when he was crying because he broke his ankle falling off a broom. She’d seen him throwing up gallons of black bile when he caught the Onyx Flu. He'd fallen asleep on her shoulder under the willow tree. He was her friend…almost like her brother.

But now she had to wonder. Was this why she was so heartbroken at his distance? Was this why her hands clenched into fists when she saw him walking in the hallways with Abigail, a girl one year older than them with flowing golden hair and beautiful jewel blue eyes. Claire was right. His eyes, those silver blue eyes that looked like a frozen lake; and the snowy white hair that he’d let Hermione use to practice braiding when they were six, it had been like silk in her fingers. 

“It’s too bad…” Claire sighed, reaching across Hermione’s lap for another biscuit. 

“What is?”

“He’s a pureblood,” she said with her mouth full of crumbs. “We’ll never be anything to someone like him.”

“I’m going to bed,” Hermione said, getting up from her place on the floor. Now she just wanted Claire to go home. She wanted everyone to disappear. She wanted to be alone.

It was true. As a muggleborn witch she would never be anything to Draco. But what made it hurt more was that at one time she’d been everything.

 

**2003 – Cornwall**

 

Even though she was rarely there, Hermione had a small cottage on the shore a few miles from the healing house. She’d been given days of leave in the past and retreated there to decompress, to read and study and fall asleep with the windows open, the salt air and cool breezes soothing her to sleep.

“Are you sure he’s well enough to apparate?” The head healer had asked. “He’s already splinched once.”

“It’s only a short distance…to the Manor.” Hermione was surprised at how easily she lied to the witch, but she was confident that he’d healed enough to travel a few miles.

Bundling Draco up in his robes and putting a clean bandage over his eyes, she lead him to the apparition point outside the healing house. It was a clear, cool early Autumn day, and she smiled at the way he clung to her arm, walking slowly, leaning against her as they picked their way over the stones.

“Where are we going? A different healing house? To someone who can fix my eyes?”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking. It was never her intention to confuse him, to frighten him. She wasn’t trying to throw him off balance. Instead of speaking she rubbed his arm and lifted her hand to pat his stubbled cheek. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him with a bit of facial hair. It was coarse and golden in the sunlight. He tipped his face down, as if he could see her, and she drew back. He leaned in again and put his nose near her neck and she heard him inhale. She cleared her throat and straightened herself, hoping her pulse would slow. Then, pulling him tight to her side, they disappeared from sight.

 

They landed in the field just north of the cottage, set on one of the low cliffs of St. Levan. The wind was stiffer and cooler there, blowing over the tall grass, and she saw him take in deep breaths, standing tall and filling his lungs. It was only a few yards to the house but he was fast losing his energy, slumping against her as they reached the front door.

“I need to lay down,” he said. “Please.”

Another first. She wasn’t quite sure she’d ever heard Draco say please in his life. He’d never had need of it. What wasn’t given to him he took without remorse and his family was so rich and so high on the wizarding ladder that manners were rarely required but always expected in return.

She lead him to her bed and he sunk into the thick, soft mattress, sighing with contentment. For a moment Hermione saw a tiny smile at the corners of his lips. 

“I can hear the ocean,” he said, as she bent down to unlace and pull off his boots.

 

After getting him settled into the small bedroom and giving him a potion to help him sleep, she sent an anonymous owl to Narcissa letting her know that her son was alive and _would_ return from the war. Somehow writing it down, reading the words, was akin to a vow for Hermione. She couldn’t let her down. She wouldn’t.

She hadn’t been home in nearly two weeks so while he slept she took a quick shower, soothing her tired, overworked muscles. She straightened up the house and started on a roast chicken for supper while sending owls to order supply deliveries and extra groceries. But it wasn’t long before his pain woke him from his sleep and the groans and rustling of sheets drew her back to his side.

“Where are we? Why aren’t we at the healing house?’

By way of answer she smoothed the damp white locks from his forehead and dabbed at the pink tender skin around his eyes with a cool wet cloth. Most of the minor cuts and bruises from his beating were gone and if it weren’t for his milky white, unseeing eyes he would look like his old self again. Pulling out her bottle of Dittany, she drew back the sheet and carefully lifted the white t-shirt he was wearing. The wound was nearly closed, now looking like a slashing lightning strike across his chest.

As she pulled the sheet back up to tuck him in he grabbed her wrist, his fingers digging deep into the flesh.

“Why won’t you speak?” he said, his voice both angry and desperate. “I can’t see you and if you don’t speak I’m alone in this darkness and silence. I don't know where we are, I don't know who you are, if it's day or night. I'm lost.” He paused for a long time before nearly whispering, “It’s terrifying.”

The sadness in his voice broke her heart and yet she knew that the old Draco would never have let her see this vulnerability. He would never have revealed this crack in the armor. And if she told him now, she'd lose him for good.

He wouldn’t let go of her wrist.

After a moment, Hermione pulled herself free and held his hand, turning it over to touch his palm. She drew one finger down the middle of the soft skin, and his fingers curled in slightly at the pressure. Then she stroked across the other way, through the middle, side to side, hoping he’d understand her message.

“What…I don’t…a sign?”

She drew her finger down lengthwise to the base of his hand. Yes.

“That means yes?”

She drew the same line. Then again, horizontally.

“That means no,” he said. 

_Yes_

“Thank you,” he said, closing his fingers around her hand. “Even that little. That's enough. Thank you.”

  

**1996 – Malfoy Manor**

 

Hermione sat alone in the library, staring into the fire. Her black dress was too small, pinching at her waist, pulling too tight across her chest and newly developed breasts and the whole thing made her uncomfortable but she felt guilty for even thinking of such a thing. For thinking about her own discomfort.

Because her mother was dead. 

Hermione had found her, tucked neatly into her bed in the same position she’d been in when she fell asleep, and yet even before touching her..she knew. There was a sallow stillness to her cheeks, her lips and Hermione wondered when she'd left, how long she'd slept in the same room as her lifeless body.

“Mom?”

Her skin was cool to the touch, leathery, no pulse beneath her pale, drawn flesh even though Hermione could still see the branching blue veins running down her forearm to her delicate wrist. She pulled her mother’s hand up to her lips, tears stinging her eyes as she kissed it. Her heart demanded she get help…to find someone…to scream the house down until her lungs burned. But her brain knew it was no use. She was gone. She was cold. Before the day was over there would be chaos and crying and arrangements and explanations, but for now in the quiet morning, she simply sat and held her mother’s hand, just as she had held Hermione’s when she was a child and too frightened to sleep.

 

That was three days ago. Narcissa had made the arrangements for the burial ceremony, telling Hermione that she needn’t worry about a thing. There would be no expenses, no debts...as if money were something Hermione cared about. The Widow Granger would be buried beside her husband in the wizard graveyard in Wiltshire. The attendance would be small. 

“Hey,” Draco called out, stirring her from her trance. “It’s time. Are you ready?”

She looked up, wiping the tears from her cheeks, tugging at the too short sleeves of her dress as she stood, hunching forward a bit to hide how the fabric pulled across her chest. They were going to floo to the small gathering house outside the graveyard and meet the young wizard who would perform the ceremony. Hermione had met him while they arranged for her burial and he’d been very kind, holding her hand and patting her shoulder with sympathy as he described how her mother, her only family in the world, would be dropped into the earth and covered with mud.

_“It’s only her body,”_ he’d said. _“She is already there with him. She’s already alive again.”_

Draco looked very handsome in his black robes, his hair neat, combed back from his face, black leather gloves and a long black scarf. He was holding her cloak as he stood in the doorway. It was folded over his arm and held it out as she walked to the door but frowned when she got closer.

“Why are you fidgeting so much?” He said, furrowing his brow. “Is that your dress from two years ago? There's a tear at the shoulder.”

She looked up at him, her eyes burning with rage.

“Yes. It is. I don’t have a new wardrobe every season like you do, Malfoy,” she said, addressing him by his last name like his precious pureblood friends did. “And my mother didn’t have the strength to make me a new mourning frock while she was dying, fixing your fucking quidditch robes.” 

“Shit,” was his delicate reply, his face showing something like shame. “I’m sorry. I…I just…look…you look uncomfortable and you don't need...You look like you’re in pain…more so than…I mean…”

“Forget it,” she said, taking the cloak from his hand, shaking her head in disbelief.

But before she could pull it around her shoulders, he pulled out his wand and muttered something under his breath. Instantly the pressure was off her chest, the fabric loosening around her waist. Her sleeves lengthened, the hem of her dress reached below her knees. It looked brand new. Another quick spell and the tear at her shoulder mended itself. She looked up at him in amazement and he shrugged.

“Fourth year. Sizing spell. Comes in handy,” he said. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”


	5. From The Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, Im heading out on a fairly long vacation. My laptop is of course coming with me and I"ll do my best to update, but I wanted you to be aware. :) Thanks everyone for all of your great comments and thoughts.

In the darkness there was nothing to do but think. When Lilac (he called her Lilac in his head because when she leaned close to him he could smell it on her skin, or in her hair. Something about her was like the cutting garden back at the Manor. Something about her reminded him of home) left him in the morning to do whatever it was she did besides care for him, he was alone in silence and darkness, only his own thoughts to keep him company.

And what thoughts they were; each one a new and unique form of torture, each remembered scene bringing a wave of guilt and shame and anger and sadness. They were weighted with pain and regret, grief and remorse. And instead of fading, softening the edges with the passage of time, with every passing day the ugliness multiplied, spreading through his chest like a stinking rot. When Lilac cleaned his wounds with a warm cloth he felt the heat seep into his skin, down to his bones, but it did nothing to actually clean him. It did nothing to thaw the ice around his heart. Nothing could do that. No one would want to. She saw the broken shell, the scratched and bruised surface and naively thought a little Dittany would do the trick. She didn’t know how deep the poison ran.

And in the darkness and silence it was the memories that tore at him deepest, the ones with the thickest roots that raced to the surface just to make sure he wouldn’t sleep.

 

**1990 - Wiltshire Academy Of Magic**

“Who is that girl anyway?” Goyle asked while the purebloods (they’d formed a club, calling themselves The Wiltshire Serpents. Pansy conjured up little badges for them to wear and everything) ate lunch by the pond. “She’s a bit weird isn’t she?”

“She lives at my house,” Draco said, shrugging his shoulders. He’d heard them tear apart other muggleborn wizards as a hobby and he was anxious to move on from the subject. “Her mother works for us.”

“She’s a slave?” Pansy asked, her eyes glinting with excitement.

“You can’t keep people as slaves, Parkinson,” Crabbe snapped. “You really are gross.”

“We pay her mom, but they live with us because her father died when she was a baby. She’s not…she’s not weird…she’s just quiet. What are you doing for your magical creatures paper?”

“Her hair is disgusting,” Pansy said, scrunching up her nose. “And her teeth make her look like a Thestral.”

Crabbe and Goyle started laughing but Draco felt his cheeks heating with discomfort.

“You’ve never seen a Thestral, Pansy,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Her teeth are fine.”

“Oooo!” She said, raising an eyebrow. “I think Malfoy has a crush on the bushy haired mudblood. Malfoy and the Mudblood, Malfoy and the Mudblood.”

They all began singing, chanting, laughing until they fell over into the grass - all except Draco who was now staring over at Hermione. She was reading alone, her hair hiding her face. 

“Shut up!” he hissed through his teeth. “Shut up. Stop it! I do not have a crush on her…she’s a….she’s just a stupid little mudblood who lives in my cellar!” 

He realized before he’d finished that he’d said the words too loud and when he looked over his shoulder, Hermione was looking directly at him, a sad knowing smile on her face. The bell rang to send them back to class and he made a move to say something to her, to explain, but she had tucked her books tight in her arms and raced passed him towards the muggle entrance to the school. Turning back to his friends he saw Parkinson with her arms crossed over her chest, her lips curled up in a smile of triumph.

 

**2003 – St. Levan Cottage**

Although his tears were still thick, red blood he no longer wore the bandages over his eyes, and it was a strange sensation to blink, to shift his gaze and see nothing but black. It made him uneasy so he kept them closed, even when he wasn’t asleep. To stave off the boredom he helped her to devise further signs. If it was raining outside she would tap her fingers into his palm. If she needed to leave the house to run errands she put a sickle in his hand. A touch of her hand to his wrist let him know that she needed to examine him, pulling back the sheet to expose him to the waist. When he couldn’t sleep he would try to come up with others, ways he could get to know more about her with nothing but yes or no questions. But if he was honest he also craved the touch. He’d gone so long without it. 

She helped him out of bed and walked him around the house a couple of times a day. Once his splinching wound was closed she ran him a hot bath in the deep iron claw foot tub and soaking there made him feel reborn. Washing his hair, brushing his teeth, scrubbing beneath his fingernails, it was a luxury they didn’t get very often out in the field and he took his time doing it, laying in the bath until the water was cold.

“I need a shave,” he said, stepping out of the bathroom, his hand brushing the wall. She’d given him a pair of pajama pants and a shirt, but he didn’t like how it felt against his tender, newly healed skin so he left it folded on the floor.

He’d made his way to the doorway of the bathroom but needed her help to get back to his bed, leading him like a child. He was helpless. He was in her debt, and yet he had nothing to offer, nothing to give her in return but his father’s money. Another on his list of sins.

In his short time being blind he’d developed a keen sense of smell and hearing. He’d quickly tuned in to her footsteps, her breathing, the wet sounds of her mouth opening and closing when she was close to him. She didn’t speak but he heard little hums and quizzical noises while she looked over his body, heavy sighs, little grunts as she lifted his food tray from the bed. But these things told him nothing. Was she young? Old? Her hands were smooth and warm, a bit calloused, but the skin didn’t have that thin, papery feel that his grandmother’s had, wrinkly and loose. She walked over to him and ran two fingers down the inside of his forearm…a sign that meant he should take her hand and follow. She lead him to a chair near the fireplace, tying a towel around his neck. Something cool and metal was put in his hand, then something hard plastic. He investigated the tools: comb and scissors.

"You can cut my hair too?" He asked.

_yes_

"Full service healing here in Cornwall. Yes. Please. Its getting far too long."

The little shick shick of the scissors against the back of his neck and around his ears was a comforting sound and he could hear her humming something to herself, an old lullaby that he'd heard somewhere before. She paused and took the scissors away and he heard water, the knocking sound of something being mixed or stirred. The shaving soap was warm and silky on his cheeks and neck, and when she leaned in close to draw the blade over his throat he could feel the heat of her body against his own.

 

**2001 – Malfoy Manor**

Pansy had come to the Manor the night before he left for battle training. She’d told Narcissa that she’d come only to say goodbye, but when Draco brought her up to his suite she’d immediately begun stripping out of her clothes until she was standing before him in a delicate pair of pink lace panties and matching bra teetering toward him on four inch black heels. There was no arguing that Pansy was beautiful in a sharp and startling way. Her dark hair was cut to just below her jawline and charmed to lay pin straight, shining in the firelight. She wore blood red lipstick on her full lips and black eyeliner that made Draco think of ancient Egypt, her green eyes glittery and piercing. 

“I want you Draco,” she said to him, unbuttoning his crisp white shirt and running her hands over his chest. Her skin was as pale as his, her nails painted the color of his father’s favorite claret and she dragged them over his skin, over his nipples, down to his stomach. “I’m yours. Take whatever you want from me. Give me whatever you want. Devour me. One last time.”

They’d had sex before. After school ninth year he’d brought her out to the hedge maze where they’d enjoyed a good snog on the marble benches in the past, but that day he’d wanted to go further, only to find out she was already well versed in the various acts and all too happy to suck him off amongst the shrubbery. Since then they’d enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with little emotional expectation. Now it seemed she was trying to change the game.

He was tired. He was lost in his thoughts. He was worried for his place in the battle, his future in England, frustrated over his argument with Hermione earlier in the day. But Pansy was there, unbuckling his belt, and so he did as she asked.

He took her. He kissed her hard enough to smear her lipstick, biting down deep enough to draw blood. He fisted her hair as he held her against him simply in order to tangle it, to feel a few perfect strands tear loose from the roots. When she went down on him he pushed roughly into her throat, watching her tears turn black with mascara and liner, running down her face. And when she was in his bed he was silent, thrusting into her from behind, pushing her face into the pillow as she moaned for him. After they were finished he said nothing when she curled her body against him, her head on his chest whispering that she loved him. It was exactly what he'd wanted to avoid and with his rough treatment he hoped that she'd come to hate him when he was gone, hoping he'd never return.

He did all of this with no intention of ever coming back to her, with no intention of seeing her or touching her again. He did all of it with no love in his heart. He did all of it while wishing that she’d been someone else.

 

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

Alone in the darkness he could imagine whomever he wanted. He could call her forth in his mind and pretend she was there, telling him how strong and brave and wonderful he was, filling him with confidence and the warmth he always felt when she stared at him, smiling, her brown eyes catching the sunlight. Those rare times when she’d been proud of him, grateful to him, happy to see his face. Those were the memories that he welcomed again and again but they were so rare, hidden amongst the muck that they rarely surfaced.

He hadn’t seen her in nearly two years, but still he could remember the little flecks of gold at the edges of her irises.

 

**1992- Wiltshire Academy of Magic**

As a muggleborn, Hermione was only allowed to attend school through age twelve. If she had any aspirations of rising above her station in life it would have to be done through a sympathetic master offering her an apprenticeship or endless hours of self study, something she was more than happy to attempt. Of course the school framed the exclusion of these students to the higher grades as some massive graduation celebration at the end of her sixth year. On the last day of school everyone gathered for games and refreshments and entertainment, the headmaster once again expressing how happy she was to have had such a talented group of “determined little wizards” gracing the halls of her school.

In the afternoon there was a play in the great hall of the school, the audience made up of students grade six and up. Hermione sat with her class near the back of the hall and watched the pureblood grades file in, Draco making sure to sit beside Pansy, even putting a hand on her hip as she shuffled in between chairs. He caught Hermione’s eye and nodded politely before sitting down and facing front. He hadn't spoken to her in days, both of them finding ways to ignore each other both in the Manor and in school and their walks home were either silent or inevitably ended in bitter arguments. 

The play was a story they’d all heard before…the Fountain of Fair Fortune. The Malfoys even had a famous oil painting of the three witches standing at the fountain thinking about their wishes. As the tale went on, Draco found himself lifting his eyes to see if Hermione was enjoying it, or maybe to see how upset she was on this, her last day of official schooling. She’d started pulling the sides of her hair back into little black beaded clips and it showed off the long thin column of her neck. Just looking at her skin reminded him of the vanilla scented bubblebath she used to have when she was younger.

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever had to sit through,” Pansy whispered, leaning over and putting her hand on his knee.

Draco shrugged her off and sat back, trying to pay attention. The show was coming to a close and Sir Luckless had emerged from the fountain, declaring his undying love for Amata. He pulled the short, brown haired princess into his arms and kissed her mouth, holding her face in his hands and Draco felt a sudden drop in his stomach…heat in his cheeks. His mouth fell open and he was entranced for a moment, unable to articulate what it felt like to watch the two actors come together, even if it was only for entertainment, even though it wasn’t real. Still, watching them kiss made the hair on the back of his neck prickle. The trance was broken when the students began to applaud, but Draco couldn’t help but look over at Hermione who was watching him from the corner of her eye.

 

**1992 – Malfoy Manor**

Draco was silent on the walk home from school. It was something of a welcome respite from his usual bragging or thinly veiled insults, references to her blood status or lack of schooling, but she could see that he was deep in thought, chewing on his lower lip.

When they got to the Manor grounds he veered off the path towards the back entrance of the hedge maze.

“Come on,” he said, offering her a rare, sincere smile. She could swear he looked...nervous. “We’ll work it out backwards.”

She raised an eyebrow but followed without question. They’d done the maze a thousand times. Draco could do it backwards, forwards or with his eyes shut. Still, any time that he wanted to spend with her was well received. Sometimes it embarrassed her, how quickly she trailed after him like a little duckling, letting him lead her down any path, even the ones that ended in her getting hurt. She knew now it was because she was waiting – waiting for him to realize she was there…she was real; like the little bronze dragon that would come to life with a bit of warmth. She would always be there for him, and if he wanted, she would be his. Once he realized that, all of the hurt and cruelty and tears he’d caused would melt away, be forgotten. She would forgive him and they would move on. She would always forgive him.

They reached the center of the maze where a bubbling fountain was surrounded by new blooming hellebores and white ranunculus. Hermione picked one of the flowers and ran her fingers over the velvety petals. Draco walked around the fountain, his hands folded behind his back like she’d seen his father do. Uncomfortable in the silence, she began to speak.

“I think these are my favorite –“

“Have you ever kissed anyone?” He asked suddenly from the opposite side of the fountain. “Have you ever been kissed?”

He spoke quickly, his eyes darting around, never focusing on her. His usually snow pale skin was flushed pink and Hermione felt her heart fluttering faster, heat on the back of her neck.

“N-no,” she said, watching him make his way around the fountain to stand beside her. 

The hedges felt taller, thicker, the walls of greenery closer. She stepped backwards and felt the coarse leaves brushing her calves. In the past year he’d grown at least three inches and now he was staring down at her, his pupils blown wide, still worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, saying nothing.

“Have you?” she asked, looking away, her voice barely a whisper.

He opened his mouth then closed it again, taking a step closer.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t. I haven’t really thought about it until today really.”

“The play,” she said. “It was very good wasn’t it?”

His eyes widened a bit.

“The whole play I mean,” she added quickly. “Not just the…”

“The kiss,” he said.

“Yeah.”

He stepped closer still and she had nowhere to go. Without even touching her he had her in some sort of grip, trapped against the hedge, her arms rippling with goosebumps as she felt his breath in her forehead. She could hear him swallow, his lips part. The flower between her fingers fell to the gravel path and they both looked down at it, their heads nearly touching. When she looked up his lips were a breath away from hers. 

“Draco…”

He kissed her. His hands moved to her shoulders and he held her still, his mouth capturing her lower lip for a moment before pulling away. He was breathing hard, staring into her eyes before moving in again, letting her feel the wetness of the inside of his lips. She felt lightheaded and warm and grateful that he was holding her up. He touched his tongue to her lips and she opened her mouth in surprise, letting him in. Their tongues slipped together awkwardly for an eternal moment before he pulled away, searching her face.

“I just…” he started, but had nothing more to add.

She smiled and tipped her head down, her lips still burning, still wet from his mouth. She would never forget it: the feeling, the lightning bolt that shot through her as they touched, the tiny sounds their kiss made.

“It's fine. It was nice. We should go,” she said, shouldering past him. “I have to help mother with the ironing.”

They made their way back to the Manor in silence, but he smiled at her one last time before they headed inside.


	6. Malleable Curses

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

 

The sun was hot on his face, prickling the skin on his forearms. When the weather was nice Lilac brought him outside to sit on the porch. She had a radio and they listened to the Wizard Wireless for updates on the war interspersed with music and even a dramatization of The Adventures of Hugo Halfhammer…a book he’d read when he was in school.

They sat in wicker chairs and he could hear her flipping pages, her quill scribbling on parchment. His habit now was to hold his hand out, palm up before asking her questions.

“Are you doing research on my hex?”

_Yes_

“I’m doing my best to remember all the details. It was quite an ambush and they knocked me out cold for a minute with their fists so there are moments that I can’t get back.” 

She patted his arm and stroked it with the back of her hand to reassure him.

“I want to help you figure this out. I don't want to just sit here like some broken old wizard. Not to brag but I’m actually pretty sharp with the history of hexes and spells.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard her stifle a laugh.

 

**1996 - Wiltshire Academy of Magic**

 

“Are you coming this weekend or not, mate?” Crabbe whispered across the library table.

Draco looked up and shrugged. Professor Haverford was watching them and he had no interest in getting a detention.

“How are you managing to go away for a long weekend during spring term?” He asked Crabbe after a few minutes. “I barely get my homework done as it is much less taking three days off.”

“Maybe it’s because not all of us give a shit if we get perfect scores,” Goyle said, dealing out a deck of cards between Crabbe and himself. “Seriously why do you crack the whip so hard? It’s not like you’ll ever have to work a day in your life. You’re one of the top wizarding names in England.”

“My father got perfect scores,” Draco said, leaning back in his chair. “And I don’t need him holding that over my head. Besides, there’s also the Premier Student award at the end of the year. Wouldn’t mind my name going down in history along with the three other generations that attended here.”

“Nerd,” Pansy said, and the rest of the table laughed. “Just get your mudblood to do it. I thought you said she loved homework.” She said the last bit as if it were the most bizarre and distasteful notion in the world.

“Yeah, well she’s …not really keen to help me out with anything. She’s still mad about being made to leave school. As if it were up to me.”

“So dramatic,” Pansy said, flipping her hair. “What would she need school for anyway? Trying to be the world’s smartest scullery maid?” The boys all laughed at her brilliant joke and Pansy stood to gather her books. “You really are thick sometimes Malfoy. You have to make it sound like _you’re_ trying to help _her._ ”

The bell rang and they made their way to the potions lab for the last period of the day.

 

**1996 – Malfoy Manor**

Hermione was reading in the library when Draco found her. He actually knocked on the open door before walking in and she slammed her book shut, standing up to leave.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “I wanted to…talk to you about something.”

He held out a black, leather bound notebook wrapped in twine.

“What is this?”

“It’s a project we’re working on at school. I know you’re upset at being…”

“Driven out?”

“Yeah, well, I thought maybe you’d like to work on this project? It’s a couple of weeks worth of work and involves research, your favorite hobby.” 

He forced a lopsided smile and Hermione took the book from him, opening it somewhere in the middle. Inside were lists of evidence; colors, smells, symptoms, wand motions and she ran her fingers over the words as if they were alive. 

He hadn’t really looked at her in a while…hadn’t been this close to her. She smelled like the almond cake her mother made for dessert sometimes and he wondered if she’d started wearing makeup. He didn’t remember her eyes being so wide and so deeply brown or her lashes so long and thick. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“We have to identify different advanced and dark arts hexes and spells. I guess the first ones are easy but it gets harder as you go. And you can use this book, fill in the answers. Then I can…I can compare it to my work and bring you back an official grade and everything.”

He still hadn’t stepped fully into the library and she noticed that he was unable to look her in the eye. How far they’d fallen. It was as if they were strangers meeting for the first time, unsure of how to approach one another, forgetting everything they'd already had. 

“Why would you do this for me?” She asked, still flipping through the book.

Truth be told, his reasoning didn't matter; the project intrigued her. She was tired of coming up with her own experiments and research projects and the muggleborn students had never had a chance to study any of the dark or ancient arts. Still, Draco hadn’t done anything nice for her in…in a long time. 

“Look,” he said, a bit of an edge to his voice, trying to grab the book away from her. “Fuck it, if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it…I just thought…” 

“I’ll do it,” she said, holding it tight to her chest. “Thank you.”

Her smile tore at his heart. It was genuine, a sincere and grateful smile; one he hadn’t seen in months. And all of her happiness was built on his lies.

“Give me the first assignment on Friday morning. I’ll bring it in and compare it to the answers, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said.

He nodded at her once and walked away.

  

**1996 – Late Spring Term**

 

“I honestly can’t believe she fell for it,” Goyle said as they all settled in to the Goyle vacation home up on the Isle of Skye. “She’s dumber than I thought.” 

“She’s not dumb,” Draco snapped. “She’s gotten every assignment right since the beginning of term, even gives them to me early. And she doesn’t ask her _mommy_ for help,” he added, poking Goyle in the chest.

“Well well, what a good little mudblood,” Pansy crooned, rolling her eyes. “I’ve never met someone so desperate for a boy’s attention.” 

“Oh no?” Draco said, raising an eyebrow. But she clearly missed the implication.

 

Hermione felt back in her element. She had full use of the library and lab and specific problems to solve. She delved into the books on the high shelves dedicated to Dark Arts: dangerous, vindictive, illegal spells and hexes that could do serious or even permanent damage. She read about spells that dug into a person’s soul, feeding on their guilt or their hatred, hexes that went far beyond simple boils or wounds on the surface and bruised the heart and mind. She couldn’t imagine what someone would have to do, or to have done to deserve such a punishment…permanent disfigurement, memory loss, frozen emotions, becoming unrecognizable to family…it was a horror. But still, the work came easy to her and she filled in the assignments, sometimes two weeks at a time, leaving the book outside Draco’s bedroom door on Thursday evenings.

She was working on wand motions out in the cutting garden late in May when he found her attacking a makeshift dummy with binding and cutting spells.

“Hey,” he said, leaning against the willow tree. “What’s all this for?" 

She looked at him curiously, an eyebrow arched.

“The final assignment,” she said. “The combination hex we have to demonstrate in class. Or…” she said after misspeaking, “that you get to demonstrate.”

“Oh…oh right,” he said, looking over her shoulder at the pond. “I just…I forgot that part.”

“It’s the only part,” she said. “Haven’t you started working on it? You have to write out the wand motions and explain the purpose of the hexes and what kind of enemy you’d use it on. It’s kind of complicated.” 

His eyes locked on hers then, sharp and shining silver.

“And you think I don’t know that? You think I couldn’t do this shit in my sleep, Granger?" 

“I…I didn’t…” she actually backed away from him, afraid at the way his demeanor had flipped so suddenly from bored and curious to enraged.

“Forget it,” he said, waving his hand. “We have two weeks to get the final presentation done. I’m just not worried about it yet. Have you worked out this week’s problem?”

“Of course,” she said, as if the question were ridiculous. “Haven’t you? What did you think the curse was?”

“I’m..I’m working on it tonight with the gang. Listen, just give me the book back early. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. I…I have to be at school on Friday by eight.”

 

Never one to wait to the last minute, Hermione had already finished the week’s lesson. The curse was a wicked one, in the category of “Malleable Curses”: things that affected each person differently based on who they were, preying on secrets and guilt held deep in their souls. They were dark, painful things; and most of them came with criminal sentences when used in real life. She wrote up the details and carried the book up to Draco’s room to leave it outside his door. Sure enough, his friends were inside, cackling and gossiping…she could even smell traces of Pixiehair Weed. 

“You arseholes could have told me about the final exam,” she heard Draco say. “She asked me if I’d been working on it. Almost did the whole thing in.” 

She heard books slam, the distinctive snorting laugh of Crabbe.

“Not our fault, mate. You depend on her a little too much, don’t you think? At least do a bit of the work yourself,” Crabbe said.

“Why should he when he’s got an adoring little mudblood who’s willing to do anything for her Pureblood Prince?” Pansy’s voice was lilting and phony, like reading a fairy tale to a child and Hermione felt her cheeks burning. “She thinks you hung the moon, Draco.”

“Nothing wrong with that, is there?” Draco answered, and they all laughed again. “Besides, I told you she was smart. She’s getting me perfect marks. Better than you Parkinson, and she’s not even in school.”

Hermione heard the boys laugh, then a loud thud.

“Oi!” Draco yelled. “Floo your ass home if you’re going to throw things you silly bitch.” 

She didn’t know if Pansy ended up leaving or not, because Hermione was already making her way back to the cellar, her fists clenched tight with rage.

 

**1996 – End of Term – WEDNESDAY – Malfoy Manor**

 

She knocked on Draco’s door, the leather bound book held tight in her hands, adopting the sweetest most subservient smile she could muster. 

“Yeah?” He called from inside. “Don’t make me get up.”

“It’s…it’s me. He- Granger. I have your book.” 

“Come in.”

The door squeaked on its hinges and she stepped over the threshold, clasping the book to her chest. Draco was sitting in his bed, propped up against pillows reading a comic book. His hair was wet as if he’d just taken a bath and Hermione felt her arms ripple with goosebumps. She liked when his hair fell in front of his eyes. It reminded her of when he was younger…when they ran over the grounds getting dirty, swimming in the pond by the cutting garden.

“Just leave it on my desk,” he said, not even looking up at her. 

“This…this one is for the final exam, isn’t it? This…combination hex?” She said, putting the book down, running her fingers over his rolled parchments and raven quills. There was another leather bound book on the desk with blood red letters reading “Pureblood Society – Leading the Charge!”.

“Yeah. Thirty five percent of our grade. You think you came up with something good?”

She shrugged and dragged a fingernail across the pristine leather binding of his Pureblood book, leaving a rough gouge in the cover.

“Pretty good. I think your Professor will be surprised.”

 

**1996 – End of Term – FRIDAY - Wiltshire Academy of Magic**

Draco left school early, not even bothering to explain to his friends or professors what the reason was. No one questioned a Malfoy anyway.

He’d never been so angry in his life. For the first time he understood the rage needed to kill somebody, the energy that had to flow through your wand. He felt it boiling in his blood, the way he grit his teeth so hard he thought they’d crack. By the time he reached the edge of the Manor grounds he was running, his cheeks hot, fists clenched. She had some nerve.

Hermione heard the heavy front door slam and nearly jumped out of her skin. She was in the potions lab on the other side of the manor but she’d been on eggshells all day waiting for him to come home…waiting for the fallout of her revenge.

“GRANGER!”

Her name echoed through the cavernous stone halls. She closed her eyes and kept working on the muscle relaxant potion she’d been working on, her hands shaking as she poured out the lavender oil. There were a few moments of peace before the heavy wooden door of the lab flew open, slamming into the wall hard enough to chip the plaster and rattle the bottles on the shelves.

“You fucking…mudblood _bitch,”_ Draco hissed, charging toward her with his hands clenched into fists.

“Draco, calm down!” She put the bottle down and backed around the table until he had her cornered against the tall armoire of herbs and seeds.

He was entirely undone, his hair messy and damp with sweat from running across the grounds; tie loosened, shirt untucked. She’d never seen him look so feral and if she weren’t afraid for her life she might have been intrigued by it, the hidden beast emerging, the way his chest heaved with breath. 

“What was your combination Granger? Your spell and hex combination?”

“What do you care? I'm sure it was nowhere near as brilliant as yours,” she said, regaining a bit of composure, crossing her arms over her chest. “Besides, its not like it counts for anything, right? I was kicked out of school.” 

“You knew,” he said, his voice low and deadly and much more frightening ever since it had dropped a few years back. “You knew that I was using your work.”

“You were using _me,”_ she yelled. “So you could go off with your friends and get drunk and get…laid…you were stealing my work!”

“You should have been fucking flattered that I wanted to! But instead you decided to sabotage me for that? Instead of being a normal person and just asking me to stop?”

“When is the last time you did anything I asked of you?” She asked, looking him dead in the eye.

“I was the laughingstock of the whole fucking room standing up there and doing wand motions to curl the professor’s hair and turn it blonde. Anything you can do to humiliate me, is that it? Anything to soothe your jealousy.”

“Jealousy! Jealous of you?!” She nearly laughed but that it hurt like a punch in the stomach. “What would I have to be jealous of?”

He leaned in perilously close, his forehead nearly brushing hers and she closed her eyes to hide from him.

“I know what you saw, dungeon dweller,” he whispered.

She pushed his chest away with both hands and he stumbled back two steps; his rage burning all the hotter now that she had dared to touch him, to try and hurt him. This was what she wanted all along, wasn’t it? To hurt him.

“I had perfect marks! I was the top of my class, you miserable bint!” He slammed his fist down on the table and she jumped, her back knocking into the armoire. Something inside fell over and she heard seeds rattling down the shelves. 

Hermione knew better than to expect any kind of apology, or even admission of guilt. It would have to be enough that she ruined his school year. She would have to just close her eyes and imagine everyone laughing in his face.

“Then next time just ask…m…ask SOMEONE for help instead of lying to them that you care about their education!”

“Your education?” He spat out on a laugh. “You know how to read, how to turn on the lights and mend a torn hem…what else does a little mudblood slave girl need?” 

It felt good to slap him across the face, to see the bright white explosion of surprise on his face, the red handprint on his milky white cheek. It was all very satisfying until he drew his arm back and hit her twice as hard, the back of his hand crashing against her jaw hard enough to snap her teeth down on her tongue, filling her mouth with blood. She doubled over in pain, holding a hand to her face and he bent down, growling into her ear.

“Don’t you _ever_ touch me again.”

 

 

 

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

 

“You should look up blood curses as well as eyesight and sensory hexes,” he said to her.

_Yes_

“That’s what I wanted to do you know…before all this. I wanted to work in research, investigation, perhaps for the ministry.”

He held his arm out, waiting for her response but there was nothing. Then, after a long silence she tapped her finger twice on the inside of his palm to say ‘ _go on’._

“There isn’t much more to it. I wanted to work in research, or maybe even teach spells one day. But my…my father died. He was murdered in an attack by the Revelation Army. I didn’t have a choice after that. They took my father from me. I had to do something. I had to go fight.”

Hermione looked up from her book then, shocked to find his face streaked with blood again, the thick red tears running down over his throat, puddling at the hollows of his collarbones. She jumped from her chair, her book falling to the porch floor with a loud thump that startled him, his face turning to where she stood. 

“What is it? Are you OK? Did you find something?”

She wiped the blood from his face and neck with the edge of her shirt while standing between his legs. When he spoke she could feel the breath behind his words on the skin of her belly.

“Blood again?” He asked, reaching up to swipe at his cheek with two fingers, rubbing the thick, satiny liquid against his thumb.

_Yes. I’ll be right back.  
_

She filled a bowl with water and brought a rag and her Dittany, although she wasn’t sure what it could do. Once the tears were wiped away and his face was cleaned there was no evidence of a wound. He looked like he had that morning. There was no evidence that he’d ever been hurt at all.

 

At least, not any evidence she could see.


	7. Alone Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for the long wait on the update. I went through a ridiculously long sinus infection, and then a fun little depression spiral and topped it all of with a delicious writer's block cherry. I apologize if this isn't up to snuff but I wanted to get this chapter out so we can move this story ahead as I have the next bits written. THank you for all of your lovely thoughts and comments...they really do mean so much to me and actually do help me in forming the details of the story

**1996 – Malfoy Manor**

After he hit her, she’d run from the room in tears and Draco stood rooted to the spot, staring at his hand. The hand that now trembled in front of his face; that had made her cry, that had stained her teeth with blood. His throat tightened and he tasted bitter acid at the back of his throat, just barely making it to the sink in the lab before vomiting. He wasn’t just angry at Hermione’s trick…not angry that his grades had been permanently stained, his father disappointed. He'd never hit anyone, not even ridiculous Crabbe with his constant nagging. Now he was shaking with rage that she had seen him for what he really was, had revealed his true nature. She’d honestly believed that he wanted to help with her schooling, that he cared about her learning curse combinations. She’d trusted him. And now finally she knew what a snake he truly was, filthy and manipulative. She’d seen it in the dungeons and now she saw it laid bare in the light of day.

All their lives it had always been the way she looked at him that burned right through to the depth of his soul. When they were younger his heart had always swelled with pride and love when she locked on his eyes, holding his gaze with a smile, hanging on his every word. But all that had changed. Now he was afraid of her eyes, her stare, and he knew it was because he was afraid that if she looked long enough he knew exactly what she would find.

 

**1995 – Malfoy Manor**

Hermione did her very best to stay out of Draco’s way whenever possible, retreating to the cellar or the library as soon as she heard his “guests” arriving after school or on weekends, but it wasn’t always easy. They all sprawled around the manor doing homework in the dining room or the lab, playing cards in the parlor, listening to quidditch matches on the wireless. If she did run into them it was usually while they were raiding the kitchens late at night or Lucius' wet bar whenever Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy were out of town. Draco had a new friend in his little gang of sycophants and she’d been surprised when he’d actually gone out of his way to ask her name while the others summoned sweets down from the highest cupboards.

“Hermione,” she’d said, offering a polite but emotionless smile. 

“Nice to meet you,” he said, holding a hand out to shake. She eyed it carefully, looking at the others as if this were a prank, a trick designed to make a fool of her in the end. “I’m Theo. Why don’t I see you at school?”

“Careful there Nott,” Pansy drawled. “She’s a slippery little mudblood.”

“Jesus Parkinson,” Goyle hissed under his breath.

“You’re such a bitch, Pans,” Draco said, not even turning around to see the hurt on Hermione’s face, but he was angled enough that she could see he was smiling. 

She pulled her hand back from Theo and blinked away stinging tears, having vowed never to cry in front of that pureblood harpy. He offered her a kind smile and rolled his eyes in Pansy’s direction. Instead of breaking down she muttered a goodbye to the new boy and left the room keeping her head down.

Pansy was always the last of Draco’s friends to leave, sometimes staying in his suite for hours after the boys left. It quickly became obvious what was going on, particularly when Hermione saw Draco escorting her to the floo in the parlor, both of them disheveled and pink cheeked, giggling in the dark.

 

**1996 – Malfoy Manor Dungeons**

 

It was late, but Hermione couldn’t sleep. Her mother hadn’t been feeling well and she thought she’d put together a potion for her since most of her nights were spent tossing and turning. She’d assured Hermione that it was just some sort of flu, her body run down from so much work, but the argument wasn’t very convincing and it didn’t explain why her hands shook during the day.

Slipping out of their shared bedroom in the cellar, Hermione made her way to the staircase only to be startled by a whimpering sound from the direction of the dungeons. The family mostly used the dank, low ceilinged rooms for storage these days, but she could still remember Draco taking her on a tour when they were younger, explaining how his ancestors used to hold prisoners for the local government, the rusty, dusty torture tools and heavy chains put to good use only a few generations prior. 

“Nothing to be scared of now,” he’d said to her, striding ahead through the corridor with his hands folded behind his back like she’d seen his father do. “But if you want to go back upstairs we can. I wouldn’t want you to be frightened.”

Standing at the entrance to the dungeons she heard the sound again and then a lower, huskier groan. Deep down she knew she shouldn’t have investigated further, but her curiosity took over and she walked on until she saw the two shadowy figures in the dark. Jumping behind a pillar she stopped to catch her breath before peeking again to confirm. Indeed there was Pansy, naked from the waist up, kneeling on the stone floor in front of Draco. He was standing, his back against the wall, his hand in her hair.

Hermione was frozen. Her eyes adjusted to the low light and she was enthralled by the look on his face, the sheer bliss, his mouth hanging open as his tongue swiped over his bottom lip, his hair a tousled mess. Her cheeks burned and she knew she should look away, but as Pansy worked faster, Draco began to moan, then hiss between his clenched teeth and it sent ripples of goosebumps down Hermione’s arms. Her mouth went dry, a strange new throbbing sensation heating up low in her belly. His hips snapped forward, bucking against Pansy’s face.

“Oh fuck yes,” he said. “Deeper.”

Hermione’s fingernails cracked against the stone pillar as she heard Pansy’s muffled whine.

“Oh shit, I can’t…I can’t hold…”

At the sound of desperation in his voice she looked up to find he was staring straight at her. At Hermione. His eyes flashed silver in the low light of the dungeons as he shuddered through his climax, holding one finger to his lips and winking in her direction. Pansy moved to stand and Hermione turned on her heel, running for the stairs, unable to decipher exactly what the expression on Draco’s face had meant.

 

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

 

She indicated to him that she would be gone for approximately four hours. She took his hand in hers and showed him the bottles of water and prepared food she’d left for him on the table beside his bed as well as his next dose of pain potion should he need it.

“I'll be fine, love. Have you left the windows open? I know it’s chilly but I feel trapped if I can’t feel a breeze.”

_Yes_

“Thank you,” he said. “And the radio? Perhaps you could leave the radio on when you go? It’s just so quiet here.”

_Yes_

He had other questions…questions that couldn’t be answered with a tap of a fingertip or a stroke over his arm. Where did she go when she left him? He’d asked her before if she went back to the healing house, if there were other patients but she told him no. So she was only looking after him, only working on his curse, his cure. There were other things he daren't ask at all. Did she have a family somewhere? A child? A husband? Was there someone who loved her, waiting for her to come back to him? Someone she spoke to, sang to, laughed with?  Draco found himself twitching with jealousy at the thought of it, this woman who had never said a word to him and yet he felt as if she _belonged_ to him. He needed her there. She kept him sane.

After switching on the wireless she ran her hand through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead before she left, the tips of her fingers lingering on his cheek.

He never was any good at being alone.

 

**1989 – Malfoy Manor**

During the late winter months of 2nd year, Wizarding Wiltshire was ravaged by the Onyx Flu. It started with only a few students missing for a couple of days at a time, but within two weeks school had to be closed entirely as more than half of the students were either recovering or contagious, the illness sweeping through the population with a vengeance. 

Narcissa, being a panicking sort, quarantined the entire family within the manor, warding the windows and doors, locking down the floo, even canceling the weekly produce delivery from the shops. But with children in the mix it was inevitable, and before long both Draco and Hermione were struck with a burning fever, a dark, creeping rash and painful, near constant nausea. It was February and although the grey, icy days were short, they seemed interminable to a couple of eight year olds already weakened with sickness. To keep Lucius and Narcissa healthy, Widow Granger kept both children together in a guest suite in the east wing of the manor. It was outfitted with two comfortable twin beds and a roaring fireplace, plenty of toys and books and even a radio to keep them company.

Although she was sick, in the most discomfort she’d felt in her life, Hermione was secretly happy for the flu. Because although they’d been growing more and more distant ever since school started, these close quarters had brought back her friend. They took every meal together and Hermione devoured his school books when she had the strength to read them. If she was too weak read or they were to uncomfortable to sleep at night, he would simply tell her the lessons they’d had, doing his best to remember interesting bits of history or funny spells that he could teach her, his heart swelling every time she admired his wand work or gasped at some fascinating lecture. He quizzed her on the latin names of herbs and what their properties were, awarding her pieces of chocolate frog for every correct answer. Draco’s collection of toy dragons had grown and Hermione still had her bronze dragon, Gerald to add to the mix. The two of them spent hours devising adventures and quests for the beasts, elaborate stories of saving villages and scourging evil kingdoms.

“We could write these down,” Draco said, lining up the dragons in front of them as if marching them into battle. “Like Hugo Halfhammer! I’m good at drawing pictures, yeah? And we could have our own comic books! Granger and Malfoy!”

She could hardly believe he’d put her name first.

Having never seen him so excited she naturally agreed to the plan in an instant. She’d recently discovered a penchant for writing stories and it was true, he could draw better than anyone she knew. Draco climbed over her to the cupboard on the other side of the room to get parchment and quills, his mind brimming with ideas. They passed the time together creating the Adventures of Gerald and Felix – a dragon and a knight who saved a muggle town from destruction with their magic. Stretched out on the floor with their quills and paints they never once talked about school…or about his pureblood friends who didn’t care about dragons or reading books or telling stories like Draco did. Hermione never brought up the fact that she still ate lunch alone, that he treated her like a stranger when they crossed the threshold of the Academy. For a few blessed days while sickness ravaged the town, safe in their bubble, Draco and Hermione were in heaven.

At night the fever brought vivid dreams and Hermione often heard Draco crying in his bed across the room. He slept fitfully, thrashing and twisting, kicking the blankets off onto the floor, his skin slick with sweat. When it got to be too much for her to bear, Hermione would get up and stand beside his bed, her hand covering his, and she would sing a lullaby her mother had taught her, holding a cold cloth to his forehead. Sometimes it would only take a minute before he started breathing slower, sinking back into the mattress, sometimes it took nearly an hour. Once, when she tried to walk away he grabbed her wrist and whispered,

“Don’t go yet. Don’t leave me alone. I sleep better when you’re here.”

When Narcissa found her sleeping beside him in his bed the next morning, they decided it was time for them to go back to their own rooms, Hermione back with her mother in the cellar. The fevers had broken after all. The sickness passed.

And the spell was broken.

 

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

“Welcome back,” he said, as the door squeaked on its hinges.

Her heels clicked on the hardwood floors and he smiled when the weight changed on the bed, indicating she was sitting beside him. He wanted to reach out and take her hand, kiss her knuckles. He wanted to show her some sort of intimacy, show her that he’d been waiting for her to come back, and not just because he needed another pain potion.

She drew the letter L on his palm.

“Yes, I’d love to sit out in the living room. I’m sore from laying on my back all day.”

He pulled himself from the bed and stood beside her. She was shorter than him by a few inches, and he could tell that she had long hair, a lot of hair. It always brushed over his arms, his neck, smelling like lilacs and vanilla. It was wet, dripping onto his arm, and her skin was damp and cold.

“Caught in the rain were you?” He asked. “Don’t you know the umbrella charm? I could show you how. You’ll catch your death.”

With a nearly inaudible laugh and a pat on the shoulder she walked him to the sofa in the tiny front room and he felt the fire start up, roaring to life with a quick spell.

“Perhaps if the weather is nice tomorrow we could go for a walk?” He asked. “I’m starting to get cabin fever, especially since I’m feeling better. My ribs barely hurt at all and it would be good for the exercise.”

He knew there would be no answer but there was something comforting about listening to her bustling around the cottage, putting the kettle on for tea, opening and closing cupboards. For a minute he heard her humming, a tune that he was sure he'd heard before but couldn't quite place. He imagined her coming back into the room, the two of them reading the newspaper and sharing dinner, a quiet night at home before retiring to bed in their home by the sea. It was something he’d never had the pleasure of…sharing a bedroom with a woman, sleeping with her for more than one night…more than a few hours, waking up with someone there.

“Where do you sleep?” He asked. “I think I’ve seen this entire cottage, so to speak, and there isn’t another bedroom is there?”

She put his tea on the table beside the sofa and drew a finger across his palm.

_No_

“So I’ve been in your bed for weeks,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re sleeping on the sofa, Lilac. Do you at least transfigure this into a bed? Now I’m feeling guilty for putting you out for so long.”

She patted his arm in reassurance and got up off the couch. After a minute he heard the bath water running, then the click of the bathroom door closing and locking.

“Don’t worry love, I won’t look!” He called out.

 

He settled in to the sofa with his tea, breathing deep the lilac scented steam seeping out from under the door, listening to the thrumming of the rain against the windows and for the first time in years he felt safe at home.


	8. Cupid and Psyche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm off to Germany for about 10 days...so I'm not sure how much writing I'll get done...but here's a little something before I go. Thank you so much for all of your kind comments and words.

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

 

As it got colder they spent more time inside. A great deal of each day was spent with Draco sitting up in bed, feeling the warmth and tingle of various diagnostic spells, counter curses and hexes…little jabs of pain at his temples as she tried to unlock the secrets to his blindness. She fed him bitter, useless potions, rubbed salves into his eyes, and every day they were met with the same results.

As it got colder he began to accept that perhaps there was no counter curse, no healing charm. Perhaps there was no cure at all. As it got colder he began to accept that he was going to be blind for life.

“It’s clear that you don’t want to tell me very much about yourself. I know that you can speak you just choose not to for some reason.”

He felt a tingle run through his veins, the touch of her wand at his forearm as she tested his blood. His pure blood. His family had a reputation throughout the south of England and she’d probably heard of it. His battalion had probably told her that he was a Malfoy, that his father was a monster, his mother a hysterical witch who protected them like a lioness. He grabbed for her hand, tracing his fingertips over hers.

“Are you afraid of me?”

Her wand pulled away and for a minute he didn’t hear her move. She didn’t touch him. She didn’t answer with her signing.

“My family has a fairly harsh reputation. I know you know who I am, who my father is. But I have to tell you that you don’t have to be afraid of…of not being able to fix me. Not being able to cure me. I won’t let them hold you responsible. My mother has a tendency to fly off the handle…”

She flattened her palm over his. _Stop. No._

He said nothing more and she continued her work, her fingers stroking over his eyelids and cheekbones with a feather light touch.

“I assume you’re not married or else you wouldn’t be living in this…little..shack..” he continued.

She snorted..loudly.

“But is there someone else? Do you have a boyfriend or a…a partner? Someone that you go visit when I’ve driven you batty?”

_No._

He didn’t intend for his sigh to be so loud…or to sound so filled with relief. After a moment though he felt her draw a question mark in the palm of his hand…meaning that he should answer his own question.

“No,” he said laying back and closing his eyes. “I don’t have anyone. Believe me, it’s better that way. I’m not quite…marriage material. Or…friendship material for that matter. Its better I just spend my time on the battlefield or in an office somewhere.”

_No_

“Yes,” he said. He could feel the heat of her body still sitting next to him on the bed. It was as if he could feel her staring at him. “I hurt someone I cared about a long time ago. I mean…” He lifted his hands as if he could actually see them in front of his face. “I physically hurt her and I…I knew it was wrong but I hit her and I made her cry…I just…I lost her after that.” Draco pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. He hadn’t intended to drag all this up…to discuss it with a stranger, and when he spoke again his voice was barely a breath. “I ruin everything I touch.”

He could feel the tears sliding down his cheeks, suddenly overcome with homesickness. He wanted to smell the library, to hold his mother’s hand...he wanted to see Hermione. He wanted to tell her…

She gasped, pulling both of his hands away from his face, swiping her fingers across his cheek.

“What? What is it? Blood again?” He asked, touching his own face, sniffing up his tears, pulling himself together.

_No. No._

“Not blood? Regular tears? Clear?” He asked, sitting up again.

_Yes_

He smiled and pulled her into his arms, hugging her tight to his chest. For a moment she stiffened, her hands braced against his chest, but quickly melted into his arms, hugging back. There was no telling what she’d done, how she’d fixed it, but something was changing. He knew now that he was going to see again.

 

 

**1998 – Malfoy Manor**

 

“Have you seen Hermione?” Narcissa asked.

“GRANGER!” Draco yelled from his chair in the library, not even looking up. She sighed.

“I can scream for her myself, darling. I asked if you’d seen her because she’s not in the house. She went into town to run a few errands for me well before lunch and…”

A loud crack of thunder shook the walls. It had threatened rain all day and now a fork of lightning broke through the gathering clouds.

“She knows her way home,” he said, but now he joined his mother in standing, looking out towards the iron gates that marked the end of the grounds.

“She does, but she’s been gone for hours, much longer than I expected and it will be dark soon…well, darker.”

The wind slapped a few rust colored leaves against the window along with a smattering of raindrops. He knew that Hermione didn’t like to fly and he wasn’t sure she’d actually been licensed to apparate. Still, she was eighteen and perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She wouldn’t want Draco riding to her rescue anyway. Lightning flashed again as thunder shook the windowpanes and Narcissa didn’t move from her spot.

“Please Draco. Just…check a bit beyond the grounds would you? For me?”

 

 

**1998 - Wiltshire**

 

Hermione sat on a bench outside the wizarding shopping district at Williby Corner. The heel had finally broken off of her black leather boots that she’d been wearing for the past three years and she’d rolled her ankle when it snapped on the cobblestones. She'd attempted a quick repair spell but the break was clean and the material too old and now she was stuck having to hobble home in two different shoes on an ankle that was already swelling. As if adding insult to injury the clouds started to roll in as she trudged forward with her bag of packages slung over her shoulder. Avoiding the curious and sympathetic glances from the other shoppers, she regretted not asking Narcissa to sponsor her apparition training, but soldiered on towards the main road that lead to the forest outside of town. From there it was only a few miles to the Malfoy grounds.

The rain hit hard and in sudden, pelting waves with cold, heavy drops. She’d neglected to wear her cloak, thinking she’d be back long before the storm blew through and the sudden cold made her teeth chatter. With every step her ankle throbbed with pain and after a bit she stopped to sit on a stone wall to regain her energy, switching her bag to the other shoulder. Looking down the road she frowned at discovering her progress was much slower than she’d anticipated now that the sun was setting. Combining that with the rain and thick clouds she found it difficult to find the trail in the woods once she’d started walking again. Not even lighting the tip of her wand could penetrate the misty cold dusk and her fingers ached, curled tight around the wood. Her broken boot slipped and stuck in the ground, her stockings soaked, the cuffs of her pants caked with the thick mud that was forming on the forest floor. Still she pressed on, wrapping her arms tight around herself, her bag heavy on her shoulder, the wind cutting through her wet clothes as easily as if she wore nothing at all.

Once the sky was black her heart started to pound, the wet trees all blending together like a monster with a thousand arms holding a tangle of vines and nettles; heavy wet leaves that multiplied the sounds of the wind and rain. She should have been at the grounds by now. Her ankle was screaming with pain, the foot below nearly numb. Her bones ached with cold. But finally, there, a way off in the distance she could see the golden glow of lights...the windows of Malfoy Manor. She smiled in relief just before tripping on a root and sprawling forward into the dirt.

 

Draco held the lantern and called out for her from near the hedge maze, his voice instantly swallowed up by the storm. The further he walked, the longer he spent out in the gathering dark, the further his heart sunk, a sick feeling bubbling in his stomach. Of course Hermione was ok. She had to be. She was strong. She was a young, healthy witch and she’d made the walk from Williby Corner to the grounds a hundred times since she was a kid. And yet if something _had_ happened, if the worst had happened…his mind replayed the bitter, hateful things he’d said to her the last time they were alone together the night after his birthday. Those couldn’t be his last words.

“Granger! Are you out here?”

He stood at the edge of the forest, looking down the wet, darkened path that lead into the trees. They had been warned as children to be careful in these woods, that dark wizards and dangerous muggles hid amongst the trees, waiting for children to prey on.

“ _She’s with me_ ,” Draco had always said. “ _I’ll keep her safe_.”

The rain picked up, swirling in the wind and he held the lantern out in front of him.

“Hermione! Can you hear me? Are you ok?”

 

She groaned and rolled onto her back, her side aching, a stinging pain on the side of her face. Something in the distance moved between the trees and her blood ran cold. The forest at night had always frightened her.

“Help!” Her voice was weak, her throat raw and cold. The contents of her bag: sickle coins and jars of herbs, fabric for a new dress, a package of shortbread, were all scattered around her, wet and ruined. She pushed herself up onto her hands and tried to stand, immediately falling to the ground again, screaming in pain, her ankle unable to hold her weight. “Please help!”

She fell onto her back and cried, the rain mingling with her tears. She closed her eyes and listened to the rain, rumbling thunder in the distance that she could feel vibrating through the ground.

 

He'd heard her plea through the darkness. The single word carried to him on the rain and he rushed forward, his stomach lurching with nausea. He should have left earlier, they should have looked for her hours ago. He never should have yelled at her, he never should have hit her. She shouldn’t have gone alone. He shouldn’t have left her alone. He shouldn't have hurt her.

“Hermione?”

Her skin was shining wet and pale against the black muddy ground, a gash cutting across her cheek dripping blood down her neck. He dropped the lantern and knelt beside her, lifting her up to sit.

“God dammit Hermione, what happened?”

 

 

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

 

“Is it raining today?” He asked, sitting up in bed, his face turned to the window as she walked around the room. He could hear her sweeping…opening and closing drawers, putting away the little collection of clothes he had amassed since staying with her. She flitted around like a bird. Then she was sitting beside him, the smell of Lilac strong as she picked up his hand and touched him.

_Yes_

“It’s amazing how I can feel the air change. Or I can smell the rain. I can feel the dampness on my skin.”

She would come back to close the windows once the sun went down. Autumn was blowing in with heavy storms and cold wind. The last thing he needed was to get pneumonia on top of everything else. But she knew that. She was a healer witch after all.

When she moved to get up he grabbed her wrist.

“Always moving around. Never sitting still. You never stay in here too long when I’m awake. Do I make you uncomfortable?”

There was a long pause but before he could ask again she answered.

_No_

“Do you know the story of Cupid and Psyche? The Greek Myth?”

_Yes_

“I feel like Psyche.”

He liked hearing her laugh. It was a comfortable sound, familiar in a way. It reminded him of home.

“Have you sent an owl to my mother? To let her know that I’m alive at least, and being cared for? She and my…she’s probably worried sick. She's probably headed to the front lines herself seeking vengeance."

She laughed again and he smiled.

_Yes_

“I was wondering…if I dictated it to you…maybe you could write another?”

_Yes_

“Not now of course” he said, because the words he wanted weren’t coming to him…the things he needed to say, only the feeling that he had to say something to her. “I just…I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

 

 

**1998 – Malfoy Manor**

 

Both of them were soaked but he could tell she was crying, a crumpled mess, broken. She looked smaller, more frail and when he put an arm around her waist to pull her up she cried out in pain, collapsing against him, clutching at his cloak with both of her fists, her face buried against his chest.

“Can you stand? Walk?” He pulled out his wand and healed the cut on her cheek.

“My ankle,” she said, sniffing up tears, wiping her eyes with the soaking wet sleeve of her shirt. “The heel broke and I couldn’t fix it…my ankle twisted…just…give me a second I can use a numbing spell…”

“Forget it, come on,” he said, sweeping her up into his arms. “Hold on tight.”

She clung to his neck and the two of them twisted into the ether, the crack of his apparition echoing the thunder that rumbled over their heads.

 

Narcissa met them both at the door, gasping in horror at the sight of Draco carrying her limp, pale form up the walkway.

“What happened? Oh my God, Hermione…are you ok?” Draco walked past her and up the stairs to the second floor. “Where are you taking her?”

“She’s already half frozen,” he said. “She’s not going to sleep in the cellar.”

 

 

She couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten into a nightgown or how her hair had been washed and dried, smelling of lilacs and hyacinth, but she remembered drinking a calming draught, and then a pain potion. She remembered someone putting a pillow behind her head, a hand on her ankle and the warm tingle of a spell.

Then she remembered that it was Draco.

“Where am I?” She asked.

The storm had passed and the morning sun streamed through the window, lighting him from behind like an angel, his hair nearly glowing: a tousled mess around his face. He was sitting in a chair beside her bed, his bare feet propped up on the nightstand, a book open on his thigh. When he answered, he didn’t look up.

“Guest room on the second floor. It’s a bit more comfortable than your room downstairs.”

She moved to sit up, leaning against the elaborately carved mahogany headboard, a pillow behind her back. Her sides were sore when she breathed.

“I feel like an idiot. That shouldn't have happened. If I'd planned the day better...Well, thank you for coming to get me,” she said, fiddling with the hem of the sheet. “You don’t have to sit here, I’ll go back to my room as soon as I wake up comp—“

“Why would you do that?” He said sharply, slamming his book closed and letting his feet hit the floor. “You knew it was going to rain and you went out without a cloak? In October? You went out without an umbrella? Why didn’t you cast an umbrella charm? We learned that shit third year!”

“You did!” She spat back. “I didn’t. I didn’t get to learn those fancy pureblood vanity charms, you git. I didn’t plan on my shoe breaking did I? I didn’t plan on falling face first in the mud. Just get the fuck out if you’re going to berate me over an accident! Don’t worry, I'll clean everything I touch before I leave.”

He was quiet then, shaking his head, looking her over. When he spoke again his voice was much softer, a different Draco than she was used to, but one she definitely remembered.

“How are your ribs?” He asked, leaning forward. “I think I healed them but they may still be sore. You landed right on a rock and I think one or two of them cracked. There was a bruise.”

He sat on the edge of her bed and touched three fingers to her side, feather light, just below her breast. A shiver ran through her blood and her cheeks flared with heat at the thought of him looking at her body, touching her skin. Did he undress her, strip off her clothes to heal her? He was hovering so close, looking down at her like he would if they were...she pulled the blanket further up her chest.

“They’re fine. Thank you for that…”

He moved his hand again and touched her cheek, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. The cut was healed but there was still a pink line slashing across her cheekbone, almost to the corner of her eye. It would be a scar like the arc of a bow, but only noticeable if someone were as close as he was now, running his fingers over it, examining his work. She could feel his breath against her lips.

“Thanks for that too,” she whispered, daring to lean into his touch.

For a moment he just stared, their mouths a moment apart, his eyes locked on hers, searching for something. His thumb smoothed over her cheek, down to the corner of her lips. He opened his mouth as if to say something then he frowned and pulled away, shaking his head.

“Why didn’t you just apparate to the gate as soon as it started raining?”

“Because I haven’t had my apparition training yet, I’ve still got the trace and I can’t afford a fine,” she said with a shrug.

Just the _training_ for being licensed for apparition was a cost she couldn’t afford. Walking and flooing were just as convenient and in the worst possible scenarios she could use a broom, but now she felt silly for not even having the ability, the option.

“Why would you not have your training? That’s ridiculous and inconvenient! It’s not safe Hermione! You can’t be an adult witch and not be able to apparate. Especially a woman. Walking alone at night? You’ll be vulnerable. You'll be dependent on –“

“I can’t afford it Malfoy! OK? Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m too poor to have the training.”

“Bullshit,” he said, standing up. “You’ve been a part of this family since you were a baby. Haven’t we always provided for you? Every need? Didn’t my mother promise you that you would never have to worry about those things? I promised...we promised to keep you safe! Your stupid pride kept you from asking and that’s how you end up lost in the woods, scaring me to death, panicking that you’d been hexed or murdered or abducted…”

He walked over to the vanity table and handed her a box wrapped in an emerald ribbon, but before she could open it he was at the door of the bedroom.

“You’re getting your apparition training and license next week. Even if I have to drag you there…you’re going.”

Hermione nodded, knowing better than to argue with him, not _wanting_ to argue with him. He was right. Before he could leave the room completely he turned and leaned against the doorjamb, his hands dug down deep in his pockets.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said. “The last time we talked…I didn’t…I wasn’t…if something had happened to you and those were the last words I said…”

“Always my knight in shining armor,” she said with a laugh, waving off his awkwardness. It was the closest thing to an apology she’d ever gotten from him and she didn’t like seeing him squirm.

He nodded tightly and she saw a little flush of pink in his cheeks but whether it was from frustration or embarrassment she’d never know.

As soon as he left the room she pulled the ribbon off and opened the box to find a pair of new black leather boots inside.

 

**2003 – St. Levan’s Cottage**

 

She came in later to give him a sleeping draught.

“I don’t need it,” he said, nearly slapping it out of her hand. “I don’t need any of that anymore I just want to be able to see. I’m tired of laying here like an invalid. We’re so close, there has to be something! Something I need to remember.”

She touched his forehead, ran her fingers down over his stubbled cheek. This, he’d come to learn, was her universal symbol for empathy. This was her “there there”. But that wasn’t want he wanted. He was tired of being soothed and placated and numbed with potions. He was tired of being tucked into bed in the darkness, his whole life like a song with one note, one feeling, one long night with no hope for dawn. He was tired of waking up alone, and that had been the case for years…long before he came to the healing house. He needed something more from her. From someone. She couldn’t speak to him…but she could help him feel.

“Lilac,” he said. “Come closer.”

He reached out with both of his hands and found her face, her throat, the curve of her jaw. His fingers tangled into thick, curly hair. She made a noise that ran through him like a sword…a shuddering, purring noise when he touched her neck, when he ran his thumb over her mouth. He could feel wetness as he pulled at her lower lip, so full and soft. He stroked her skin like a sculptor smoothing porcelain.

“I want to kiss you,” he said, his voice low and raw. “I haven’t felt it in so long. I haven’t felt a kiss in years. Just a taste…please.”

He pulled her closer and found her mouth with his own. Her lips were warm, pushing against him with as much eagerness as his own. Perhaps she needed him too. Maybe she knew the secret...that it didn't have to mean anything...it could just feel good. She pressed her hands into his chest and he dug his fingers into her hair kissing her harder, his tongue slipping into her hot, open mouth as she whimpered against him. After a moment she broke away from his kiss but he wouldn’t let her go, his fingers trailing over her throat up to her jaw. He held her face in his hands and his thumb brushed over her cheekbone. He felt a little ridge of skin…a scar, a smooth curve like the arc of a bow. She pulled out of his hands stood up from the bed. He felt something strange…like grasping at the images of a forgotten dream only to lose them again, something he was supposed to remember but couldn't.

“Wait…I’m sorry…Lilac, don’t leave…”

He could still taste her on his tongue, feel the heat and pressure of her mouth on his and he wanted to feel it again. He wanted more. Now that he’d tasted her he would crave it, every time he heard her lips part or felt her breathing next to him. She’d awoken something in him that he’d long abandoned, a need he’d tried to bury, a crutch he’d always depended on. It was his one escape from misery and he'd been trapped for so long.

She touched his cheek and leaned in, kissing him on the forehead, her hair brushing over his throat. 

“Lilac…”

She drew her thumb in a gentle sweep across his forehead. It was how she said goodnight.

 


	9. The Wandering Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a fairly long chapter because I couldn't find a good place to break it into two. However, this is where I also tell you that with D/Hr Advent coming up the chapters may be a bit slower in coming until after the holidays. I hope that you'll understand. A few interesting clues in this one...our mystery is unraveling.

**1998 – Malfoy Manor Grounds**

 

“Hermione, could you give me a hand, dear?” Narcissa called to her from the cutting garden.

“Yes Mrs. Malfoy." 

It was the day before Draco’s eighteenth birthday party and the Manor was abuzz with preparations. School had ended, Graduation day passed and it was the perfect time for celebrating, just before the wealthy wizarding families headed out for their lavish summer holidays around Europe. Narcissa was cutting fresh white roses and ranunculus, baskets of waxflowers and freesia. The fragrance was thick and heady and made Hermione sleepy in the heat of the afternoon.

“We’ll have to put these in the front hallway, and I want to have an arrangement on each table under the tent.”

“Yes ma’am,” Hermione said, walking beside her as they carried the baskets back to the house.

  
Draco, Hermione knew, couldn’t possibly care less what the centerpieces were going to be, or the menu or what color the linens were. He was only interested in having a day to be the center of everyone’s universe, a taste of being Lord of the Manor with the bonus of getting drunk and most likely laid in the process. In the past, Hermione had made a point to leave the grounds entirely on his birthday; either taking her mother into London for the weekend or just taking the day to go run errands in town. But now her mother was gone and as much as she wanted to curl up in the cellar like a dormouse and pretend she didn’t exist, she knew that she owed it to the Malfoys to help with the preparations.

“It’s nice to have you here for occasions like this,” Narcissa said, touching her elbow. “I always wanted a little girl to share my more…delicate hobbies with. And I know how you love spending time in the gardens.”

 

A few weeks after her mother had passed away, Narcissa took Hermione into town for tea and shopping. She’d spent the afternoon lavishing her with two new dresses, an exotic smelling perfume and even took her to a spell stylist who created a custom potion to condition and detangle her thick, curly hair, transforming it into beautiful, chestnut waves down her back. The older woman smiled and clapped, holding up earrings and hats, dressing and primping Hermione as if she were a little doll, and for a while she enjoyed the pampering, feeling important and doted upon after such a long time of sadness.

“I know that you must feel…lost right now, Hermione,” Narcissa had said when they sat down for tea. “But you must know that we…all of us…we see you as family.” She reached across the table to pat her hand. “You’ve been with us at the Manor since you were a baby.”

“Yes, and I appreciate it Mrs. Malfoy.”

“And you will always have a home with us. For as long as you like. I want you to know that. And you mustn’t worry about expenses or rent or any of that,” Narcissa said, waving her hand at the distastefulness of it all. “Now that you’re out of school I’m sure we could find things to keep you busy around the house and…well, you could continue to receive your mother’s salary as a sort of savings…for yourself.”

Hermione smiled and thanked her benefactor politely, the fun of the afternoon suddenly becoming tiresome and heavy. And while Narcissa continued her speech she found herself silently amazed at how quickly her afternoon of pampering had, in the blink of an eye, become a job interview.

 

 

The day of the party she woke early, knowing the elves would want help in the kitchens and with a plan to spend the remainder of the day on the third floor in one of the old studies with tall windows that looked out over the grounds. Stepping outside to pick up the morning Prophet she could already smell things baking and out on the lawns a couple of elves were erecting a white tent in front of the hedge maze. It was a gorgeous early summer day with a breeze that sent the dark green and white streamers fluttering, the charmed paper lanterns bobbing along the front walkway. She knew that both Draco and Narcissa had worried about rain. 

As she turned back towards the kitchens she saw Draco coming down the main staircase barefoot, obviously having just woken up, his hair a tousled mess, wearing shorts and a gray t-shirt from the Wiltshire Academy. Although they did their best to avoid one another ever since their encounter in the lab years before, their inevitable interactions managed to stay amicable if only for the sake of his parents. She assumed he wanted to appear as the sweet little prince they thought he was and she didn’t want to do anything to get herself kicked out.

“Good morning,” she said, holding the folded newspaper in front of her like a shield. “Looks like a good day for the party.”

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes flicking to hers for only a moment before he ran a hand through his hair and glanced around the room. “I’m sure mum will be buzzing around all afternoon…party’s more for her than me really.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. He still wouldn’t look at her but he wasn’t leaving either and she needed to get up the stairs. 

“Well,” she said, offering a smile, “Happy Birthday Draco. Maybe this year you’ll get your real dragon.” 

He looked up at her then, his eyes locking on hers and the corner of his mouth tipped up, the tiniest smile, the first he’d given her in months.

“Yeah, maybe.” He said. “I’ll give you a shout if I need help making him fly.”

 

 

Once the first guests started to arrive (Crabbe and Goyle of course, who barely knew when to breathe without Draco telling them to) and the music started playing, Hermione snuck away with her book, sitting in a window seat to watch the festivities. Pansy showed up and immediately threaded her arm through Draco’s elbow, laying her head on his shoulder while he tried to talk to a sixth year blonde girl who was clearly in awe at even being invited. There was a crowd at the food table and Hermione could see a couple snogging next to the willow tree, thinking they were well hidden. If nothing else, the occasion would be entertaining from a people watching perspective. 

Within an hour or two the grounds were filled with Draco’s friends and people who longed to be Draco’s friend…all of the purebloods from the Academy, even a few that had graduated, along with friends of his father and a couple of relatives in from Surrey. Amongst it all, he lounged on a white wicker chair with a gold paper crown on his head, his chin resting in his hand as if he were a bored king awaiting his jester, everyone coming to him to present a gift or well wishes, his polite host smile turning on and off like a quickly placed mask.

A knock at the door made Hermione jump.

“Hermione,” Narcissa said, her smile kind. “You know you were invited to the party. I told you that you were welcome.” 

“Oh I know ma’am. I just…I didn’t want…I didn’t think…”

Narcissa only nodded and Hermione noticed that she looked tired, her eyes a bit sad.

“I know,” she said, moving to sit beside Hermione in the window seat. “I know things have been…strained between the two of you but it’s…it’s only temporary. You have to believe that. There was a time when the two of you were inseparable, thick as thieves.” She worried the hem of her party dress between her red lacquered nails. “I’m afraid he’s fallen in with a group of people who have changed him…this isn’t what I wanted him to be.”

“He’s strong enough to be whomever he wants,” Hermione said, looking back out the window, unwilling to cast him as the victim in their situation. 

“He could be. But he waits to see what people expect him to be, what people see him as. Does he look happy to you?”

They both looked down at him sitting alone, a half empty bottle of champagne dangling from his hand. Hermione’s heart tightened.

“No.”

“He’s lost,” Narcissa said, still watching her son, a stoic statue amongst a whirlwind of activity, someone looking far older than eighteen, burdened, tired. “All of these people…they aren’t here because they love him or care for him. They’re here for the status, the money…the influence that he has…or will have one day. He’s lost, Hermione. He doesn’t know who he’s supposed to be, who he wants to be. So he’s always let everyone else tell him what he is.”

Hermione turned from the window. 

“He seems fairly comfortable telling other people who they are as well,” she said. “Or what they aren’t. What they’ll never amount to, what they’ll never have.”

Narcissa bristled, her mouth a tight frown.

“Yes. I know what’s gone on between you. I’ve heard what he and his friends call you and you know I don’t like it. He didn’t learn it from me. I can’t apologize for him, but I can tell you that I’m very embarrassed by his behavior.”

“Thank you for that,” Hermione said, flatly, still staring down at him, unimpressed at this polite outpouring of compassion. He may not have learned it from his parents but they did nothing to assuage him of the belief that she was something lesser either. Narcissa’s posturing was clearly to soothe her own soul and not Hermione’s. “I’m going to go do some work in the lab since Mr. Malfoy is out of town,” she said, standing up.

Narcissa took her hand to keep her from leaving.

“At least help me bring out the cake, would you? Let him see you. Maybe he’ll see what he’s meant to be.” 

“He knows very well he’s a perfect pureblood prince,” Hermione said, sighing.

“He is,” Narcissa said, heading for the door. “But I think he’d always fancied himself more of wandering knight.”

 

  

She didn’t bother to change out of her shorts and t-shirt, but she did pull her hair back and pinch her cheeks a bit before helping Narcissa bring out the outrageously heavy and unnecessarily large cake loaded with thick white candles flickering in the fading afternoon light. Draco stood from his chair, his eyelids heavy with a bit of drunkenness, and his friends gathered around to sing. Hermione watched him force a wide, toothy smile, slipping an arm around Pansy’s waist. The gang all hooted and whistled when he blew out the candles and he bowed dramatically in thanks, making his way towards the cake. Before she could slink away, Hermione was handed the knife and a stack of white china plates by Narcissa and she was quickly put to work. 

“Birthday boy first,” she said, handing a thick slice of snow white cake to Draco, their fingers brushing together as she handed him the plate.

He smiled at her and nodded.

“Is this your mom’s recipe?” He asked. “She always made the best---“ 

“Draco! Bring me a little tiny piece of cake,” Pansy sidled up beside him and slipped an arm through his elbow, dragging a finger through the frosting on his slice and licking it off obscenely. “I’m going to be terrible and have a bite but I know it will go straight to my ass.’

“Nothing wrong with a plump ass, Parkinson,” he said, unwinding from her grip. Then looking back at Hermione he gave a quick roll of his eyes and smiled. “A little tiny piece of cake for the center of the universe please.”

 

For nearly half an hour she stood behind the cake table and watched the party spread out over the lawn, couples and groups whispering, giggling, passing around bottles of champagne. Before heading inside she gathered up the remaining silverware and plates and wiped a bit of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. 

“Now you’ve got green icing on your forehead,” someone said, walking up beside her. 

It was Theo Nott, the friend of Draco’s that she’d met a few years ago. He was at least six inches taller than her now, with dark hair and green eyes, devastatingly handsome. She felt herself smile involuntarily and far too wide, her cheeks blooming with heat.

“Oh well, it can only be an improvement,” she said.

He reached out with his thumb and swiped across her skin, cleaning the icing from her forehead before licking it off.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “But you do look better than any witch here.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and dramatically blew a strand of hair from her face, walking back to the house with a handful of dirty dishes.

“Let me help you,” Theo said, “then maybe we could go for a walk? I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“Well you know, after being shunned from school I’m not really welcome amongst the pureblood elite,” she said, her eyes sliding over to where Pansy was giggling on Draco’s arm, Crabbe and Goyle telling some loud, raucous story.

“Well then I wouldn’t be either. But they’ve never really cared for me ever since they found out my father is in support of magical revelation. Doesn’t quite matter to me what Draco thinks. I came to this party mostly to see you.”

Again she felt her cheeks heating, her heart beating a little faster against her ribs. She hadn’t felt that way for years…not since Draco…

Theo pulled out his wand and levitated the dirty dishes to a sideboard, out of her arms. Then, without asking, he took her hand and laced their fingers together, letting her lead them towards the willow trees that lined the pond. As they walked, Hermione found herself enthralled by the story he was telling, about a trip that he took with his father to a library in Paris, filled with more scrolls and magic books than he thought even existed and the complicated wards that guarded each floor. She was so hooked on every word that there was no way she could have noticed Draco watching her, frowning, his eyes filled with something a bit different from rage.

 

**2003 – St. Levan Cottage**

 

Hermione knew that the winter was close, and if she couldn’t figure out the cure to Draco’s blindness they would be stuck inside the cottage riding out the cold and rain in silence. Regardless of the weather, if she didn’t find a cure soon Narcissa would come looking for him and tear her to pieces for keeping him from her. Already the healing house in Mousehole was asking for her return full time, wondering when she was coming back, reminding her of the other soldiers injured and suffering. Hermione needed to work faster.

On sunny afternoons she gave him a sweater and they walked the grounds around the house when his joints and muscles were sore from laying in bed. When he first came to St. Levan she would hold his arm, her hand threaded through his elbow. But now things had changed, now he wanted to hold her hand, linking their fingers together. 

“I had a dream last night. Or maybe not quite a dream, but a memory. I remember the curse, being struck by it. Whoever it was…I feel like…there’s something…important about who it was, something that took me by surprise…I don’t remember that. But I remember what he said.”

Hermione’s grip on his hand squeezed tighter. Obviously the incantation was the most important part of the curse, the key to finding what it was, to finding the cure…if it existed. In her studies she’d learned that some of the darkest, most forbidden curses couldn’t be countered, just as the Avada couldn’t be undone. An injury to the body could be permanent. But most curses used in combat had some sort of reversal.

“I don’t remember the wand motion, or if there even was one…but he did say Lacrimas Innocentium”

Without thinking, Hermione brought his hand up to her lips, kissing the knuckles. He stopped walking. They were on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, the sky slate grey with clouds.

“I wish you would talk to me,” he said quietly, stroking the side of her face with the back of his hand, tucking hair behind her ear, every touch of his fingers sending goosebumps up her arms. The milky white caul over his irises was fading and she could see a hint of the silvery cast of his eyes, focused somewhere over her shoulder. “I know the reputation my name holds, but you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

She closed her eyes to drink in the feeling of having him so close and suddenly he was kissing her again, his arms tight around her, one hand low on her back, the other tangled into her hair. This wasn’t a gentle goodnight kiss; not hesitant or soft like before. He kissed her as if he were taking the life from her, clinging to her as if she’d disappear, his hips pressed hard against hers so she could feel how badly he wanted her. She let her own hands sink into his hair, down to the nape of his neck and he growled in approval, his tongue slipping with hers.

“Take me home,” he whispered in her ear, his hand moving to cup her breast, his thumb brushing over her nipple, already hardened with the cold. His open mouth laid wet kisses over her throat, behind her ear. “Take me home and let me touch you…let me strip you…let me make love to you.”

Instantly she felt cold. She pressed her hands to his chest and separated them gently, touching his cheek one last time before threading her arm through his elbow to lead him towards the cottage, at last understanding his motivation. She knew now exactly what he wanted from her and why he wanted it. She hadn’t seen Draco in years, but she knew one thing was for sure.

He didn’t make love.

 

**1998 – Malfoy Manor**

Theo walked with her around the full perimeter of the Malfoy grounds and they talked comfortably and constantly about everything from the coming magical revolution to their favorite books to Hermione’s mother. She was surprised at how kind and funny Theo was, not at all like the other pureblood wizards that ran with Draco. She wondered how they even ended up as friends, hearing Theo’s thoughts on the necessity of blood mixing to keep wizarding strong. He thought that muggle cooperation was absolutely necessary to the future.

“Mr. Malfoy says that the supporters of Revelation want a war,” she said, her voice trembling a bit with worry. It was all Lucius lectured about…the dangers of consorting with muggles and how they’d all be destroyed if the world knew who they were. He swore and ranted and vowed resistance all while Hermione sat in the same room, doing her best to act like he wasn’t attacking her very existence. 

“Yes, well that’s what the regressive side always says, isn’t it? They don’t want things to change. They’re happy how things are because it serves them best. Half of these pureblood families are only pure because of inbreeding and arranged marriages. Look at Greg Goyle for Merlin’s sake, is he a representative of the pinnacle of wizardkind?”

“You’re a pureblood though.”

“A pureblood with secrets,” he said, wagging his eyebrows. “A wizard family doesn’t stick around for three hundred years without a muggle sneaking in between the sheets once in a while. A few name changes, a couple of forged documents and whiz bang, we’re pureblood again.”

She laughed. She laughed hard for the first time in weeks, feeling important and wanted and as if something could actually happen in her life. The crowds had dispersed and the elves were cleaning up the remains of the party as the sun started to set. They were back at the front of the hedge maze before she knew it and Theo turned to look down into her eyes, holding her by the shoulders. Draco had kissed her in the maze when she was thirteen, but since then there had been nothing. Preparing herself for something deep and passionate, she closed her eyes and parted her lips, only to be met by a fairly chaste brush of his mouth against hers and then a kiss on her cheek.

“Can we go out next week? Maybe Wednesday night?”

“I’d like that,” she said. “Send me an owl, I’ll meet you in town.”

He kissed her again and she nearly floated in through the front gates of the Manor, completely blind to Draco watching from the window of the front parlor.

 

 

Her dates with Theo were the highlight of her week, although he always insisted they go on Wednesday or Tuesday night as he had obligations on the weekends. Still, they would sit together in a pub and eat dinner and drink pints of beer and she would laugh out loud, releasing all of the tension that had built up through the week. Being with Theo would erase the icy silences from Draco who had barely said a word to her since the party, the lectures and rants from Lucius who was forever predicting a devastating war and the worry from Narcissa who would pull Hermione aside and pour out her heart about her son’s future, as if there were anything Hermione could do to fix it.

After having dinner, Theo would walk her home through the forest, choosing the longer, winding trail through the trees to make their time together last. Once they were deep in the woods, he would grin and press her against a tree trunk, kissing her deeply, his hands roaming up beneath her t-shirt, his hips grinding against hers as he told her how beautiful she was, how uniquely brilliant.

“And your tits aren’t too bad either,” he joked once, kissing her smiling lips.

And when she told him that she didn’t want to move too far too fast he would sigh and smile and kiss her forehead, taking her by the hand, walking her home without hesitation. She felt no pressure, no threat, and it was like a weight lifted. He made her feel happy and comfortable and feminine, better than she’d felt in years.

 

 

Walking into the manor after her fourth date with him, she nearly stumbled over Draco who had been waiting for her, sitting on the stone staircase, his elbows on his knees.

“Have a nice time?” He asked, standing up.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered, not missing the false sweetness in his tone, the sneer on his lips.

“What do you think he wants from you?”

“I supposed he wants what he’s asked of me. We’ve had a few dates, a few snogging sessions…I know it’s hard to believe but maybe he has feelings for me.”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yes I’m sure, an eighteen year old wizard has found his one true love.”

“Don’t you love Pansy?”

“Pansy? Fuck no.” He looked offended at the prospect. “I don’t think her own mother loves her. She’s a right bitch.”

“Then what do you want from her?”

“A good blow job, a fuck on Friday nights if I’m up for it, someone to refill my drink when it’s empty. It’s nothing more than that. It never will be. You always were the one to believe in fairy tales Hermione.”

“And you were always the one drawing them. You’re the one who wanted to be a knight in shining armor riding a dragon to save the world, you hypocrite.”

He eyed her harshly, his eyes glittering with anger, unused to her willingness to fight back. 

“If you’re looking for someone to love you, to take care of you and give you a perfect little life who knows, it may happen. And I wish you well. But Theo Nott will not be the one to do it. He’ll drop you as soon as you spread your legs. You're just a challenge to him. Trust me, petal.”

The wicked smile on his face made her blood boil and she charged forward, her hands balled into fists, tired of backing down. 

“How would you know? Not everyone is just looking for a quick fuck, trying to pretend they’re some sort of heartless ice wizard. How do you know what Theo wants? Not everyone is a cold unfeeling bastard like you.” 

“Because I’ve heard him say it! To my face!” Her heart dropped at the words. She could see in his expression that he was telling the truth; the way he held her stare, ducking down to look right into her eyes. Seeing her surprise, his voice lowered…his features softened. “Why do you think it makes me so angry to see you with him? He’s going to hurt you. You walk around opening your heart up to everyone, to the worst people, people who don’t deserve it. EVERYONE will hurt you, Hermione. You need to be careful.”

“Well,” she said, adopting a false tone of calm. “I appreciate your advice. I know how deeply you care about my future.”

But before she could leave the room he grabbed her elbow, spinning her back to look at him.

“He’s like me, Granger. It’s not evil. It’s just fucking. Nothing more. He sees sex as…a release, something that feels good…something that clears your mind and makes you feel whole for a few precious minutes. A brief escape from this fucking misery, the coming war, the unknown, adult responsibility, whateverthefuck. And if that’s what you want too then great, go and get it.” He paused but there was nothing for her to say. He’d rendered her speechless, revealing an emptiness she’d never knew he had, his words laced with desperation and fear. When she didn’t speak it all changed. He leaned in close to her, grinning in his usual snide arrogance. “Everyone sees you as this precious, delicate flower, so pure..so clean. But I know different, don’t I, pet? Admit it. I know you’re interested. You’re curious about it at least.”

“And h-how do you know that?” She asked, unable to hold his gaze.

“Because I’ve seen you watching me, little dormouse.” Whispering in ear. “I saw your jaw drop when I was fucking Pansy’s face in the dungeons. Even in the dark I could see the blush on your cheeks. Were you wishing you were her?”

Her throat was tight and she felt a heavy, throbbing heat low in her belly. Even through his cruelty the muscles between her legs were clenching at the touch of his lips to her ear. She would have been humiliated at his question had she not really looked at him…had she not seen his pupils blown wide, his own cheeks burning red, his pulse beating at the hinge of his jaw. Looking him right in the eye with her own sly smile on her face, a smile that came from discovering something long suspected, she whispered.

“Were you wishing she was me?” Before walking away from him, the only sound her heels clicking across the stone floors.

 

 

**2003 St. Levan Cottage**

 

When they got back to the cottage she took both of his hands in hers and lead him back to the bedroom. He stood still as she unwound the scarf around his neck and pushed the cardigan he wore down off his shoulders. She helped him out of his t-shirt and unbuttoned his pants, sliding them down his legs.

“Lilac…”

She put two fingers to his lips to quiet him and he took her hand, kissing the palm, her finger tips, the inside of her wrist. Her hands were his only window to who she was, how she felt, what she wanted him to know. They were strong and warm, a bit calloused, the nails short, the hands of a worker. After pushing him down to sit on the edge of the bed she knelt and unlaced his boots, setting them aside. She was kneeling in front of him, her hair brushing against his bare legs, and he reached down to cup her cheek, to rub his thumb across her lips.

“Don’t go,” he said.

The touch of her lips to his surprised him. The gentle warmth of the kiss did not. It was so perfectly her, unassuming but insistent, slow and deep, her hands holding his face as she slipped her tongue over his, standing between his legs. He reached out to pull at her jumper but she stopped him, helping him to lay back on the bed, covering him with the sheet. His heart sunk at the loss of her touch, her kiss, the closeness of her skin; but then she was beside him. Her arms were bare, he could feel the thin straps of her bra, the smooth lines of her collarbones, her hair laying against his throat.

In an instant his body began to react, heat building deep in his belly, his cock twitching beneath the sheets, a hunger awoken after being alone for so long. He wanted her so badly, all of her. He didn’t care that he couldn’t see her, he wanted everything else; he wanted to feel her skin, smell her, taste her arousal, hear her whine with need. Wrapping an arm around her waist he pulled her down onto his body, her chest warm as their hearts beat beside one another, their mouths still working together as she straddled his hips.

“I want you,” he said. “Stay here with me tonight. It’s your bed anyway,” he breathed, his hand massaging the rippled bones at the top of her spine, roaming down to run along the waistband of her panties before she pulled away.

Then she was kissing his neck and then his collarbone as her hips rolled over his growing erection.

“Lilac,” his protest was weak, his hand on the back of her neck as she pulled back the sheet and kissed his chest, the forking, tender scar across his torso. Her fingers followed the trail her lips set, running over his skin, down the sides of his healed ribs, the muscles of his flat stomach. “Wait…you don’t have to…”

But her hands were at the waistband of his underwear, pulling down, freeing his hardened cock to the cool air. Still she was silent and still he was in darkness and all that remained was the sensation of her warm fingers wrapping around him, stroking him until he ached, twisting the linens in his fists. Then her mouth: her lips slipping around him, her tongue dragging along his length. For weeks he’d been her patient, never knowing what it was like to hear her whisper or argue or weep or soothe, and now all he heard was a moan, a deep purr that vibrated over him, through him, and he bucked forward, deeper into her mouth. She worked faster, the sounds from the back of her throat more high pitched and desperate as if giving him this was just as pleasurable for her. The very thought of it, of her wet and writhing, wanting him, just the _idea_ of hearing her climax at his touch nearly pushed him over the edge and he squeezed her shoulders.

“You have to…I can’t stop…fuck…” He said, trying to spare her, but she only took him deeper, her fingers scratching down the length of his chest, laving her tongue down his length until he was touching the back of her throat, the tight, wet heat finally triggering his orgasm. She dug her fingers into his hips, holding him tight as she swallowed it all, his own hands gripping her hair tight at the base of her skull.

Slowly she slid up his body and curled up beside him, pulling the sheet to cover them both. Her hair, thickly scented and long and loose over her shoulders, fanned out over his chest as she nestled herself into the crook of his arm. He was suddenly struck with guilt; a strange sense of remorse at having used her. When they were out on the cliffs, walking in the cool air and feeling the wind he had truly wanted her. He’d wanted Lilac. He’d wanted to escape his dark prison with her. Like always he’d wanted to numb himself with sex if she were willing to give it. And yet now, sinking his hands into her hair, drawing circles on her bare back with his fingers, feeling her nestled against his chest with her arms wound around him, he found himself consumed with thoughts not of Lilac but of _her_ , the one he’d always wanted. The one whose heart he’d broken a thousand times over. The one woman he would never have.

“I didn’t mean for you to…you didn’t need to…service me like that,” he whispered into her hair. “I asked you to stay because I wanted you. I wanted to give you something. I wanted both of us to feel good…”

 

Her only answer was a finger pressed to his lips and a sigh as she draped her arm across his chest, tracing the jagged edges of his scar with her fingertip until she saw that he was drifting off to sleep. She knew what it was that he needed, she knew what it all meant to him, how it quieted his soul, just a physical act that meant nothing more. Besides, she knew he wouldn’t give her anything of himself willingly.

Not if he knew who she was.


	10. Under The Stars

**1998 – Wiltshire**

 

Draco sat in the pub alone, watching the wizarding families bustling through the shopping district, arms intertwined, laughing in the late summer sunshine, buying school robes and classroom supplies. He didn’t think he would feel this way when he finally graduated from the Academy, with an ache deep in his chest to trade places with one of those kids…running to buy their first wand. Crabbe had already started working for his father in wizard antiquities…Pansy was an apprentice at the bank, Goyle was getting married after the New Year. Their paths were all set. Draco was simply…adrift.

They’d all gone out on a celebration bender the day after their graduation, closing down the pubs, singing in the streets. Goyle had told him how lucky he was to not have to start working right away, to not have to worry about the future. They told him he was so lucky having been born a Malfoy; with a name like that, nothing was in question.

And yet now he felt like he’d been dropped into the middle of real life with no map of where to go. His father was obsessed with the Revelation Uprisings around England and spent the majority of his days meeting with other angry rich wizards in order to rail against those who would oppose them. Narcissa had all but adopted Hermione as her own little doll, teaching her about the meanings and powers of the flowers in the Potions Garden, having tea with her in the study where they spoke in hushed tones, huddled near the window. Draco was just expected to…find his own way, his own purpose and ambition. But as of now, he felt nothing. He was lost.

“Mate! What the hell are you doing to me?” Theo slammed a half empty pint glass down on the table and sat down, rousing Draco from his self-inflicted misery.

“Nice to see you too, Nott,” he muttered, vanishing the small puddle of ale that had splashed from Theo’s glass.

“Hermione broke our date for this week. Any idea why?”

“She may have made plans with my mother. Or could it be because you’re an insufferable, self-centered pig?”

“No, no I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s because she heard from _someone_ that I was only trying to get into her pants.”

Draco looked down, running his finger over the condensation on his own glass. He did his very best to hide his grin.

“Listen Malfoy, I don’t mind you cock blocking me if you’re going to make some sort of move yourself. All’s fair in love and dueling and all that rot. But you don’t even want her, mate! You treat her like shit, letting your friends insult her, trick her into doing your school work, making her serve you your own fucking birthday cake? Or maybe you _do_ want her but you know she’d turn your arrogant, abusive ass down. Maybe you just don’t want anyone else to have her.”

“If I wanted her, Nott, I could have her. Trust me on that one,” Draco hissed, no longer enjoying this little tiff.

“So go get her then.”

They stared each other down, Draco feeling more confused and alone than ever but not daring to show it. Beneath the table he clenched his fist tightly, wondering if he could break Nott's jaw. A few other patrons in the pub were glancing in their direction, wondering if their raised voices were going to turn into a hexing volley or a fistfight. But eventually Draco blinked, sitting back and shaking his head.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, mate. Have yourself a great summer, you miserable prick.” Theo stood, leaving his beer and Draco alone in the pub.

 

 

**2003 – St. Levan Cottage**

 

Hermione woke him early, letting him know she would be gone for the day, her energy for research obviously renewed with the knowledge of the incantation for Draco’s hex. The other clue was his eyes. It seemed that the more he talked to her, the more he revealed about himself the clearer his eyes became, until it was nearly impossible to tell he was blind at all, his eyes back to their stormy silver blue color, obscured by the tiniest smoky veil. She knew that those changes had to be part of the curse’s origin as well.

The weather was cold and rainy and he was beginning to feel the onset of cabin fever. Were he at home his mother would read to him, talk to him, friends would come visit, although he was pressed to name who exactly that would be. He’d burned Pansy’s bridge the night before he left for the war, Crabbe had moved to America to avoid the war and Goyle’s wife…didn’t care for him too much, having remembered his arrogant, selfish attitude in school. Maybe it would be Hermione to take pity on a broken soldier, although likely she’d tell him he’d deserved every hex ever hurled at him and a few extra for good measure.

He pulled himself out of bed and felt his way along the edges of the furniture to the living room. His wand was safe on the mantle of the fireplace and he used it to light a small fire before exploring the room further. To pass the time he tried to guess what things were and perhaps what they meant to Lilac; something he could ask her about, like the little knick knacks and pieces of old china. There was a statue of a Chimera, a fluted vase with two cherubs serving as handles, a heavy lump of fabric stuck through with a hundred sharp, metal points…a pin cushion. He picked up thick, heavy books and did his best to decipher the embossed letters on the leather bindings. There were the standard volumes of spells and hexes, a few old, tattered schoolbooks that he remembered reading third or fourth year. A large, heavy book was simply called Bedside Manner for Healers and he laughed out loud. But there were also poems and books of plays and he recognized the smooth, shiny cardstock bindings of muggle pulp novels. Some of his fellow battalion mates had tried to get him to read them claiming they were harmless fun (and quite spicy), but he’d been so thoroughly conditioned by Lucius against muggle “cultural attempts” that he withdrew from them as if he’d been burned. His fingers played gently over the higher shelves where he felt a scattering of picture frames and two stuffed animals, incredibly soft and limp, well loved. One a bear and the other a long creature with whiskers and a thick tail…a ferret or an otter. He would ask later. In the far back corner of the highest shelf he felt something else, something small and cool to the touch, no bigger than a field mouse. It seemed familiar, like something he’d held before…a figurine…a toy.

Draco gasped as the dragon warmed and squirmed in his hand. He felt along the smooth back and long tail flicking against his palm, the wide leathery wings. A Welsh Green. It all rushed at him at once. Why she hadn’t spoken a word, why she demanded to take care of him alone yet shied away from his touch, why her kiss felt familiar and why she wouldn’t spend the night with him. The dragon huffed and snorted, climbing up his arm and down again.

“Hello Gerald,” he whispered, closing his fingers around the tiny bronze dragon and sitting down on the couch to wait.

 

 

**2001 – Malfoy Manor**

 

They buried Lucius in a huge, elaborate ceremony with nearly a hundred guests gathered around the gravesite showing off their most expensive and fashionable black robes. They huddled under the trees, propped themselves up against other gravestones and wept delicately while he was lowered into the ground. Hermione could see her own parents’ graves from where they stood, the two modest stones in the shade of a hawthorn tree on the other side of the wizard burial ground. Narcissa was nearly catatonic, having been given the strongest calming potions the healer could create and now she stood beside Hermione, wavering on her feet. Draco, stone faced and silent, was on her other side, holding her up with an arm around her waist. After hours without speaking a single word, barely able to hold her eyes open, Mrs. Malfoy wailed as they lowered her husband’s coffin into the ground and Hermione took her hand, squeezing it tightly, remembering all too clearly how the same had been done for her.

“You’ll be OK, Mrs. Malfoy. We’re here for you.”

She looked over the distraught woman’s head to catch Draco’s gaze, accepting his grim nod of acknowledgement, and then he let go, moving away to take condolences from approaching guests, blocking access to his mother.

They apparated back to the Manor where the elves were preparing the house to receive visitors who would have lunch and tea, each of them bringing baskets of flowers that filled the falls with a sickly sweet fragrance that gave Hermione a headache. Many of the mourners were just wizards from town who wanted to gawk at the world famous Manor, exploring the art and libraries, trying to sneak up to the second floor, maybe sneaking a souvenir from the parlor. Fortunately, Draco had warded the staircases to make sure that no one would wander.

“She’s in no condition to talk to anyone. Go put her to bed, whatever she needs, just make sure she’s comfortable,” Draco said as they walked into the house.

He suddenly looked far older than twenty, his eyes a bit dulled, brow furrowed with thought, shoulders drooped as he tugged off his black leather gloves in the front foyer.

“Of course,” Hermione said, daring to touch his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

“You don’t need to be,” he said flatly. “He wasn’t your father. You didn’t even like him.”

There were a thousand things she wanted to say, to admonish him for being so cold, to remind him that she’d lived in this house nearly her whole life and Lucius HAD meant something to her, to tell him that she wanted to be there for him, not for his father. But instead she just turned and took Narcissa’s elbow, leading her towards the staircase.

 

 

The guests stayed until the sun began setting, when Hermione started hinting that the family was tired and they appreciated their thoughts but the funeral was over. The elves summoned coats from the cloak room and helped herd people out the front door and began levitating the china back to the kitchens. Hermione sat for a while in the parlor with a glass of fire whiskey, watching everything bustle around her, looking for Draco but quickly found herself alone, the room empty and quiet.

“Draco?” She called for him but heard nothing.

He wasn’t in his suite, he wasn’t with his mother, or in the lab. She checked on Narcissa and stepped outside. It was late spring and when the sun went down it was cold, the light wind slipping beneath her cloak and chilling her skin.

She found him in the maze, sitting on the stones beside the center fountain, his head on his knees.

“Draco, come inside. It’s cold out here.” She cast a warming charm around him.

“You should be with my mother. She shouldn’t be alone…she…”

“She’s asleep Draco. She’ll be comfortable and safe until the morning. But you’re who I’m worried about now.”

Finally he looked up at her and she could see that he’d been crying. The magical glow of the illuminated fountain highlighted the tear tracks on his cheeks, the glistening in his eyes. She was surprised to see him reacting to his father’s death with such emotion. They had never been very close and in the years since Draco’s graduation they’d butted heads on his friends, his future, even the way he wore his hair. She slid down and sat beside him, watching the stars come out.

“It’s hard now. I know what it’s like,” she said. “Those first days when everything’s different and it feels wrong to just be…existing as normal. It’s hard. You don’t have to hide how sad you are, how you’ll miss him. No one expects –“

“I’m not…this isn’t because I miss him. I mean I…that’s not what I’m hiding from,” he let out a sarcastic laugh and sniffed up his tears, looking up at the same constellations, the map of the sky, overwhelmed by his infinitesimal importance in the universe. “I just feel…it’s like I’m lost.”

Hermione startled at his use of the word, the same word his mother had used at his birthday party. How long had he been in this misery?

“This house…these grounds…they’re all supposed to be mine to manage, to run…I’m supposed to be this perfectly situated adult…to know what I want, or what I’m supposed to do…I hated him for trying to dictate my every fucking move…trying to tell me who…what I should care about…what I should fight for.”

Lucius had been one of the more vocal proponents for Magical Secrecy, fighting to keep the world of magic hidden from the muggles, keeping their lives peacefully separate. The unobtrusive meeting house outside of Wiltshire had been ambushed by wizards working with muggles for Revelation and Lucius had been murdered to send a message. These attacks on Magical Secrecy gatherings had started the war and now the whole of wizard England was separated in two with battles taking place all over the south of the country, the landscape dotted with makeshift healing houses and hospitals, safehouses and jails.

“How do I know what I’m supposed to do now?” He asked, his words cracking as he started crying again, unable to look at her.

His voice was small and quavering, like a child, and Hermione instinctively put her arm around him, pulling him against her. He put his head on her shoulder, his breath instantly slowing, his whole body shuddering as he calmed at her touch. Her fingers ran through his hair and she stared out at the darkening sky, remembering how she used to sing to him when he was afraid of the dark.

“You don’t need to have everything figured out today, not even this year. You don’t need to know what you’re supposed to do or be for the rest of your life. You have time to figure it out. Right now you just have to take care of yourself and your mother. Just be here for her, that’s all.”

He’d lifted his head and was looking at her. She could feel it, his breath on her cheek.

“Not you?” he whispered. “You never needed anyone to take care of you, did you? No matter how badly you were hurt.”

She turned to look at him, their foreheads brushing together and she shrugged.

“I just learned not to expect it. There’s no weakness in wanting to be cared for.”

“No,” he said, stroking the side of her face. “I suppose not.”

Her whole body shivered as Draco sunk his fingers into her hair, pulling her in against his mouth, kissing her softly, coaxing her lips open with his own. For a blissful moment she kissed him back, remembering the tender moment they’d shared in the maze so many years earlier, how his kiss had filled her with an energy she’d never felt before, a prize she hadn’t known she’d been waiting for. His arms wrapped tighter around her, his hand massaging the back of her neck as he pulled her over into his lap, straddling his thighs, his kiss growing deeper, more insistent.

“Please,” he said quietly, and when he moved to kiss her jaw she felt his wet eyelashes against her cheek.

_He sees sex as…a release, something that feels good…something that clears your mind and makes you feel whole for a few precious minutes._

She didn’t want him like that. She didn’t want to be a tool for his comfort and nothing more; a warm body to soothe his pain when he had so many others willing to do the same. So she pulled back, careful to smile kindly, to wipe the tears from his cheeks with her thumb, kissing his forehead before standing up.

“This isn’t what you want, Draco. I’m not what you want.” She held her hand out and he stood. “You need sleep, not distraction. Come on.”

 

 

**2003 – St. Levan Cottage, Cornwall**

 

Hermione raced into the cottage, bursting with energy, her blood bubbling in her veins, invigorated from the cold and the success of her research. Seeing Draco on the sofa stopped her in her tracks. He was facing her, the fire crackling, a mug of tea on the table in front of him. When he looked up she could see his eyes clearly, the beautiful silvery irises completely free of the milky shroud. For a moment she froze, worried that he could see her, that she’d been discovered. Instead he only smiled, looking in her direction but not at her, somewhere over her shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said, patting the sofa cushion next to him. “I’m ready to dictate that letter.”

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Magic

**2003 – Mousehole Healing House, Cornwall**

Hermione sat alone in the reference library of the healing house, flipping through the pages of a book on dark hexes, specifically malleable curses…the ones that Draco had failed to study in school. The ones he wouldn’t know if they were fired at him. They were rare and almost entirely forbidden although not illegal. The key to successfully casting them was to know your victim, their history, their soul. Lacrimas Innocentum was the incantation for a dark and very personal hex: Orion’s Curse.

 

> **_ORION'S CURSE_ **
> 
> **_Malleable, Dark Magic, Possible Permanent Damage, Curse Level X_ **
> 
> Not to be cast on strangers. While performing wand motion and incantation you must focus on the emotional/psychological crimes of the target.
> 
> _Wand motion, tight clockwise diamond from bottom point._
> 
> Lacrimas Innocentum is The Tears of The Innocent. This curse will only work on those who have wronged an innocent party that remains unresolved and unforgiven. It causes instant and prolonged blindness and tears of blood. The curse may only be reversed once the cursed party has received forgiveness for their crimes, although some symptoms may lessen as their souls change, hence the malleable nature of the hex. If the wronged party is deceased or unable to grant forgiveness effects may be permanent unless an immediate blood relative forgives by proxy.

 

Everyone in Draco’s circle of friends had been on the side of Magical Secrecy. The wealthiest wizarding families had the most to lose from opening the society to muggles, whether it be through robbery or taxation or some other means, change was not good for the ancient magical lines. Of course there was one family that fought against it and one man who knew exactly who Draco had wronged. There was one man who was sure Draco would never be forgiven. He had to have been cursed by Theo Nott.

 

The head healer appeared beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“We haven’t seen you in a long time, Miss Granger,” she said kindly. “Are you ill?” Her tone was light and understanding, but Hermione knew that she was digging for information.

“I’m…I’m fine, thank you," Hermione said, gathering up the books and scrolls she’d had spread out over the table. “Do you need this space? I’ll clean this up.”

“Is this for Lieutenant Malfoy?” The healer said, sitting down and resting a hand over hers to stop her fidgeting. “Are you still treating him? All the way up in Wiltshire?”

The two women stared at each other as if they could understand the other’s thoughts. Still, the head healer’s smile never dimmed. She was older than Hermione…old enough to be her mother and she worried for the younger woman who looked pale and drawn, her hair dull, pulled into a messy knot at the nape of her neck. She knew that when Hermione was presented with a problem she rarely focused on anything else until it was fixed. Her stubbornness could be exercised to a fault.

“No,” Hermione admitted on a sigh. “I’ve…I brought him to my cottage in St. Levan. He’s been there while I treat him, while I look for a cure for his blindness. Before you say anything, I have been sending messages to his mother…she knows that he’s safe and being taken care of. I promised her I would do that.”

“You said once that you grew up with him. He means a lot to you, but I suspect not as a brother, am I right?”

Hermione paused then, and in a breath she reflected on her entire life with Draco; the lowest lows, the blissful highs, every time he touched her kindly and the time he struck her violently. She remembered his kiss, his smile, his tears, his anger. No, he wasn’t like a brother to her. Whether he would accept it or not, he needed to know he was more.

 

**2001 – Malfoy Manor**

The manor seemed cavernous and cold with just Narcissa and Hermione there and they spent most of their time together in order to combat the loneliness and fear that overtook their thoughts when they were alone. Hermione moved into a bedroom on the second floor across from Narcissa’s suite and they all but closed off the far wing in an attempt to combat the emptiness. Sometimes there were visitors, the mothers and wives of other wizards gone to war trying to support one another, but inevitably Narcissa would stand and leave the room when the conversation grew too dark, leaving Hermione to escort the well-meaning friends to the door.

After four long months they received an owl from Draco indicating that he would be going to the front lines of the war as he had been declared a potions master and expert dueler and had risen in the ranks. The news paled his mother’s face and she fell back into her chair, holding the missive out to Hermione to read for herself. The words struck her like a punch to the gut. She knew a bit more about Draco’s desire to _do something, be something_ than his mother was aware of and she feared that he would most certainly put his life in danger in order to prove himself worthy of whatever it was he felt he lacked, to find some sort of purpose instead of swirling unrooted in the wind.

Her application to the Cornwall Healing Academy had been accepted only a week earlier and now she knew it was her calling. She was being sent to rescue him…to save him from himself. Of course she’d have to start as an apprentice and she wouldn’t even be allowed near one of the field hospitals for another six months, but she would at least be closer to the war and news of the war, of the wounded, the casualties. All she could do was pray that she wasn’t too late. She rolled the message back up and handed it to Narcissa, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“I’ve been accepted as an apprentice in Cornwall,” she said, kneeling down to look her in the eye. “I’m going to work at one of the healing houses on the front lines. And I promise you Mrs. Malfoy; I will bring him home. I will make sure that he’s safe.”

“You two are all I have in the world,” Narcissa said, stroking a shaking palm down over her hair. His mother looked older than her forty five years, deep worry lines in her forehead and beside her eyes, threads of grey hair streaking through her long blond locks. “I hate to let you go, to see you leave me…but I know you were meant for more than this. You’re smarter than all of this. Every day you spent here you were being held back. We clipped your wings the moment you arrived. I suppose now we’re being punished for it.”

Hermione shook her head, unable to speak for the tears in her eyes. She shuddered to think what would have happened to her if they had abandoned her after her mother died. Her childhood hadn’t been perfect, but Narcissa had tried to at least make it bearable.

“Just promise me that you’ll send an owl every week,” she said to Hermione. “That you’ll let me know everything you find out about him, where he is, how he is. I can’t bear the not knowing. I want you to be the one to tell me if he…if…”

“I know,” Hermione said, standing and giving the woman a hug. It seemed strange that just as she was leaving was when she felt closest to her.

 

**2003 – St. Levan Cottage, Cornwall**

“I’m glad you’re back,” Draco said, smiling at her. “I’m ready to dictate that letter.”

Hermione unwound her scarf and set her bag down, moving slowly towards the couch. He looked…bright, awake…filled with energy. The tips of his hair were damp, a clean pair of pajamas, he’d even made himself a mug of tea. She stood directly in front of him and looked him in the eye, trying to find and hold his gaze, but still he looked off in the distance, his eyes blank and unfocused. He was still blind…but something had improved his mood. Something inside him had lifted. 

“Are you ready?” He asked, folding both of his hands together in his lap for a moment before opening his palm to her, waiting for her answer.

Without getting a quill or parchment, Hermione sat in one of the leather chairs across from him and quickly drew a finger down his palm. _Yes._

“Hermione,” he said, and for a brief moment she was sure that he was looking right at her, calling for her, but she didn’t move from her spot. “Do you remember the day you found your magic? We were playing in the dungeons. I made you angry with something I said…a theme that would occur consistently for the next twenty years…and the fire and passion and frustration you felt in that moment let the magic surge to the surface, course through your blood…your magical blood. I don’t care if it’s half magical, or muggle born or pureblood, its magic and it flows through you stronger than nearly any wizard I know…besides myself.” He smiled at that and she couldn’t help but grin, seeing his eyes light up, reflecting the gold of the fire. He so rarely smiled.

“And instead of letting you know how magical you were, I spent the next decade of my life tearing you down, making you feel less magical. I brought people around who tortured you because they were jealous of your brain and your beauty…” he paused there and she saw him shift, resting his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes. “They were jealous of your smile and your musical laugh. They were jealous of how comfortable you were in your skin, your strength, your pride. Maybe I was too. We didn’t see how you were hurting. We didn’t care.

“I’m sorry for using you. And not just for using you to do my schoolwork. I’m sorry for taking your first kiss and never giving you anything more. I’m sorry for breaking your heart when you thought you’d found love in someone who is probably a better man than I’ll ever be. I’m sorry for humiliating you in front of my friends, using you to make me look powerful. But more than anything I’ll ever say, I’m sorry for hitting you, Hermione. I’ve carried the weight of that guilt for so long, never knowing how to apologize or when, knowing that you’d probably never accept it and not wanting to hear you say the words. I still feel the heat in my hand, I still see the pain in your face. It haunts me.”

He paused then, his eyes still closed, but she could see his lip trembling. He rubbed at his eyes with two fingers and took a deep breath.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again. But even if I don’t I hope you can find it somewhere in your heart to forgive me. To see the Draco you used to know, the one buried under layers of insecurity and arrogance and ego. I promise you he’s there. I just…I don’t know how to break through.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “I’ve always wanted to be your hero. I always wanted to give you your fairy tale. My father assured me right from the beginning that it would never be, that I could never have it, that you weren’t worth it. And I fucking believed him. I believed every word. I hope someday you’ll forgive me and let me try again.”

She hadn’t realized she was crying until he stopped talking, leaving the room in cold silence and a tear slid off her cheek onto her hand. Looking at him then, staring just beyond her, his quicksilver eyes clear as crystal, shining with tears of his own, she saw the Draco she’d always loved, the Draco she’d always believed was real, hiding beneath the masks and disguises he’d struggled to wear. She moved to go to him, to hold him - until he held out his hand. And then she froze. His fingers opened slowly, revealing Gerald the Bronze Dragon, curled up asleep in his palm.

“Hello, Hermione,” he said as she fell to her knees in shock.

 

**1987 – Hermione’s Birthday – Malfoy Manor**

The most Hermione ever wished for on her birthday was a white cake from her mother and perhaps new dress or cloak, hand sewn, embroidered with colorful flowers or curling vines, her mother’s specialty. So it surprised her to open the door of her bedroom to see a floating banner, written in colorful crayon saying “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIONE!!!”

On the floor were all of Draco’s dragons wearing the tiniest paper crowns she’d ever seen. She smiled from ear to ear and Draco, from his hiding spot in the doorway across the hall, felt his heart beat a bit faster, his own smile so big it hurt his cheeks. He knew she’d been unhappy at school, struggling to fit in, lonely in her muggleborn classes and he wanted her to feel better. He wanted to be the one to make her feel better. He wanted to be the one to fix it. 

“I see you there, Draco. You’re not a good hider.” 

He came out of the doorway, still wearing his green flannel pajamas, holding a crudely wrapped gift with a silver bow.

“Happy Birthday,” he said, holding the box out to her, his chest puffed with pride. “It’s from all of us but I picked it out.”

Hermione sat on the stone floor outside her bedroom in front of the audience of toy dragons and unwrapped the package. Inside the box was a heavy, leather bound book, **_The Illustrated Guide to Magical Creatures_**. The pages of the book were gilded, the paper heavy and rough textured with watercolor paintings of Hippogriffs and Grindylows, every magical creature in alphabetical order, with stories of their origins and abilities. For a moment she was lost in the pages, running her fingers over the slightly raised texture of the words on each page. She barely noticed that Draco had moved to sit beside her, the two of them looking at each illustration with their heads bent so close together that they touched.

“I knew that you liked the book we looked at in the library with the dragons. And you said you’d never seen these animals. But you will. You will see them some day. Every one of them: because now you’re magic just like me. These creatures are for you. So this book is for you. You can keep track of all the ones you see.” 

She smiled, running her fingers along the lines of the mermaid’s tail before closing the book and hugging it to her chest.

“Thanks Draco,” she said, her smile so wide and bright he could see all of her teeth.

She loved the book, and it sat on her shelf in the cottage, just beside the fireplace. It had always been one of her most valued treasures and she knew it was worth hundreds of galleons. Still, the greatest gift Draco ever gave her was the reassurance that to him, she truly was magic.

 

**2003 – St. Levan Cottage – Cornwall**

He waited. He heard nothing but the thump of her knees in front of him and the shuddering breath from her lungs. He could smell the damp wool of her jumper, the lilac of her soap. He could feel the heat from her body. But he wanted to hear her. Setting the dragon onto the table in front of him, Draco reached one hand out to find her face, the side of her cheek. His thumb ran over her skin up to her cheekbone and felt the damp trails of her tears, but he also felt the scar, the thin arc like a bow beneath her eye.

She pulled his hand away and kissed his palm, the inside of his wrist. She went up on her knees and touched his face, pulling his mouth to hers, kissing him softly, her forehead pressed to his, her hands in his hair. He held her still for a long moment before pulling her back for another kiss, a deeper kiss, his tongue slipping over hers as she moved closer, wedging herself between his knees. He kissed the tears from her cheeks, the wet lashes of her eyes. He kissed her scar and the tender place near her jaw where he’d hit her nearly ten years before. She whimpered in his arms and he pulled her up to straddle his legs, his arms wrapped tight around her, his fingers sunk deep in her thick curly hair as she nuzzled his neck.

“Say something,” he whispered to her between urgent, nipping kisses, his lips moving against her mouth. “I know it’s you. You can’t hide from me anymore. Say something Hermione. Please.”

She held his face in her hands and kissed his mouth again before pulling back and touching his lips with the pads of her fingers. He held his breath, his heart pounding, his chest flushed hot as she ran her hands down to his stomach before wrapping her arms around him and pressing her head to his heart. She sighed, an exhale heavy with the weight of twenty years and when he held her close, stroking her hair she finally whispered, 

“Draco.”


	12. The Armored Heart

“Draco,” she repeated, listening to his heartbeat, breathing in the scent of his soap…just existing in the revelation of the moment; the tension of her secret gone.

Although he’d touched her before, held her, kissed her, it was different now that he knew it was her, that she was actually in his arms willingly. His pulse was racing, his fingers threading through her hair, holding her close. The sound of that single word, his name, tightened his throat, his nose stinging as his eyes filled with tears. At that moment he would have given every galleon he had to see her face, her smile.

If she was smiling.

He pulled back, still holding her, still stroking her hair…that gorgeous, thick curly hair that he’d mocked her for. Now he wanted to wrap himself in it.

“Why wouldn’t you speak to me?” He asked, his voice quiet, a whisper only for her, only for the tiny space they occupied together. Doing his best to hide his disappointment, to be calm and inquisitive he added, “Why would you hide from me all this time?”

She stiffened in his arms for a moment and then pulled away completely, away from his touch, the air around him cold as she moved to stand beside him, apart from him.

“Why wouldn’t I hide?” She asked, her voice shaking, but he couldn’t tell if it was with anger or fear. He needed to see her face because he didn’t like the sound of her voice, the ice around the words. “Why would I tell you who I was and give you another chance to mock me, to reject me? The last thing you ever did was call me a fool.”

She was quiet, but he heard her sniff, and he could hear from the cracks in her words that she was crying.

“I know,” he said, holding his hands out to her, reaching for her. His heart was sinking every moment she was away from him…every step she took backwards. “Hermione I’m sorry. But you have to know that I’m not the man I used to be…I…I don’t even know who…”

“How would I have known that?” She said, her voice shaking. “Why would I willingly give you another chance to hurt me?”

“Because you knew how frightened I was,” he said, his voice laced with a bit more venom than he intended as he remembered those first dark days, crying blood, shaking with pain, begging to be told what was happening. “You knew that I was alone, in pain. I had no one.”

She breathed deep in the silence, steeling herself for something.

“Then maybe you understand how I felt all my life, Draco. Maybe you understand how I felt when my best friend in the world, my only friend since birth knocked me to the floor, or insulted me in front of his friends. 

Just when he was sure she was going to walk away from him forever, he felt her weight beside him, her leg touching his. She pulled his hand into hers and laced their fingers together. 

“I won’t lie to you and tell you that I’ve stopped loving you. I do love you, Draco. I’ve loved you all my life for some ridiculous reason I’ll never understand. Maybe it’s because I’ve known the real you even though I’ve seen him twisted and corrupted and lost, I know he’s still there. I know your heart. You wanted to be a knight.” Her hand was warm on the side of his face, her thumb brushing over his cheekbone. “I had to know. I had to know that you remembered how you hurt me. That you regretted it.” The silence was too long and he knew she was thinking, considering. “But you dictated your letter _after_ you knew it was me. How do I know your apology is real?”

 

 

**2001 – Training Barracks, The Cotswolds**

He’d received one letter from Narcissa while in training. After that their mail was cut off as it became too dangerous for the animal messengers, the constant influx of owls to the training fields hinting to the enemy where they were based. There was a hole in the thatched roof of the old stone cottage he was stationed in with seven other potions masters and a handful of dueling experts. The wind swirled down and through the hole like a chimney and any heat they could generate escaped in seconds. When it was clear he could see stars through the damaged thatch, but when it rained, like that night, it dripped onto the stone floor just beside his bed, keeping him awake late into the night. They’d tried charming the ceiling but by the next night the hole was always back, sometimes a bit bigger, sometimes a bit more to the left, but the hole never stayed blocked and they suspected it was a sort of hazing, keeping them uncomfortable, getting them used to cold nights without sleep. By the light of his wand he read over the letter from his mother for the fourth time, hoping he would be able to fall asleep, his mind filled with images of home.

 

> _Dearest Draco,_
> 
> _I hope you are safe, taking care of yourself and working hard to become the exemplary soldier that I know you always imagined you would be. I know that your father always told you to be strong, to be bold and aggressive, to take what you wanted or felt you deserved and let no one see the secrets to your power. But I fear that in your effort to be a shining white knight you have only succeeded in building an impenetrable armor around your heart. In time you will find that carrying that armor is a burden you hadn’t anticipated, and within it your heart will grow cold. You’re still just a boy, barely having seen the world and all the beauty it has to offer but already you’ve decided that the entirety of it is against you, that you must always lash out, striking first, scorching the earth like your namesake, no matter who is caught in the flame._
> 
> _She is leaving in a week for healer training and with tears in her eyes she has promised to find you and keep you safe, bringing you home to me. Even though I know, sadly, that you have done nothing to deserve her devotion, she is sacrificing everything for you; leaving the safety of the manor, Wiltshire, going out onto the battlefield with her heart on her sleeve._
> 
> _You’ve told me how you feel about her. You’ve told me how you made yourself sick with regret when you struck her, something that makes the acid burn in the back of my own throat to think about. You’ve told me how your skin rippled with goosebumps when you kissed her in the maze, your first kiss, shared with your first love. When we were alone, apart from your father, you poured your heart out to me, telling me that you felt something for her._
> 
> _Tell her Draco. I imagined I had forty years or more to spend with your father, the love of my life. When he left for the meeting that afternoon I barely looked up to say goodbye to him, waving my hand and promising to see him that night. You don’t know the time you have. You don’t know what will happen tomorrow._
> 
> _She’s a treasure Draco. Let her be your treasure. Show her how valuable she is.  
> _
> 
> _Love always,_
> 
> _Your Mother_

 

 

**2003 – St. Levan Cottage**

 

Hermione’s heart was pounding against her ribs. She wanted to believe him outright, to stop all of this hurting. Part of her wanted to put every ugly thing behind them and simply melt into his arms, be his avenging angel, his faithful companion, to be his.

But another part of her, a dark and quiet part, wanted him to suffer.

He was. She could see that. His eyes had gone crystalline with tears, his jaw trembling. When she went quiet, her question hanging in the air, he looked for her, his eyes darting, unfocused, around and beyond her.

“P-please…” he stuttered. “Hermione, please.”

She watched as he moved from the couch, kneeling at her feet, weeping. Never in her life had she seen him brought so low. Not even on the night of his father’s burial when he cried in her arms did he seem so broken as now…at the thought of losing her.

“Hermione, don’t leave me. I can’t. I can’t lose you. I was going to send the letter weeks ago. You know that. I told you that.” He let his head rest against her knees so that she could feel the warmth of his breath when he spoke. “It hasn’t just been these last weeks that I was alone. It’s not just since my attack. I’ve been alone for years, in the cold…fighting for something I don’t even know if I believe. And all that time I was thinking of you…thinking that if I just made it out of the war alive I could come home and you would be there. I would apologize…we would start again. I saw men, boys…I saw them dying alone in the mud, not getting their second chance…not getting a chance to live and I didn’t want to die that way.” She could hear the breath hitching in his lungs…felt the heavy silence as he tried not to sob. “I’ve had no home for years. I’ve had no family for years; but even before then I felt completely alone. I knew that I’d hurt you…that I’d…I broke your heart a thousand times since the day we started school and I knew that I’d lost you and it was like a hole in my heart.”

“You could have apologized. You could have told me any number of times,” she said, trying to remain stoic, calm and unmoved although she could see how each admonishment tore at him…how he’d already accepted defeat.

“I know that now. I know.” He ran his hands up the sides of her legs, holding tight to her hips, his head in her lap. “My father…he told me you were worthless. He told me that you would be a rock around my neck and when I was young and confused…I believed him even though I knew it couldn’t be true. Someone as brilliant and compassionate and beautiful as you couldn’t be worthless, lesser. After he was gone my mother told me that she’d never thought of you that way, that you were a secret treasure, that you were like a jewel I couldn’t see.”

Hermione’s eyes stung with fresh tears, thinking to how the woman had held her before she left for healer training, how Narcissa had sworn that Hermione was meant for a life better than she’d been given. As cold and proper and distant as she was, Draco’s mother had truly cared for her…and her mother…all her life.

“I can’t go back and change anything,” Draco said. “I can’t erase it. But I will spend the rest of my life regretting what I did and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you let me.”

For a moment they were both quiet, his fingers digging hard into her flesh as if to anchor her to him, as if she were his buoy on a raging sea. When she could stand it no longer her fingers went to his hair, carding through it slowly to soothe him, smoothing it back from his tear stained face. It was shaggy and desperately in need of a trim, hanging in front of his useless eyes. He sighed at her touch, his hands moving to the small of her back. She felt his lips purse, a kiss pressed to the inside of her thigh that she felt between her legs.

“Don’t leave me Hermione. Let me show you that I love you.”

She bent forward and kissed the top of his head, holding his trembling jaw in her hands. Draco went up on his knees to kiss her mouth, his thumb brushing over the arcing scar on her cheekbone as he held her face. He moved to kiss the thin ridge of skin and she shuddered, sliding down from the couch to straddle his hips, watching him explore her face with his fingers and lips.

“Do you remember that night?” He asked, whispering into her hair. “I was terrified, seeing you crumpled in the mud, the blood on your face.” He touched the scar again, kissed it again.

“I don’t…remember it I mean…I just remember falling…getting hurt,” she said, her eyes closed, her scalp prickling as his lips played absently over her skin. “I remember waking up in bed.”

His voice was barely a whisper, as if relaying a secret only for them, a private conversation hidden in this remote little cottage.

“We apparated to the Manor and you fainted when we arrived. You kept waving in and out…awake, asleep. Do you remember? You’d never apparated before and you were hurt already, bleeding, broken. I told my mother that I would watch over you. I would take care of you. Not her, not the elves. And for the first time in your life you couldn’t turn your nose up and demand to help yourself. I put you to bed, healed your ankle, your cut, dried and warmed you.” His fingers traced swirls and circles on her back as he told the story, lulling her into a trance. She could remember seeing him come through the trees, the lightning revealing his eyes to her, how he scooped her into his arms without a thought, the twisting, nauseating pressure of apparating with him. “I was only going to sit. I was going to sit beside you on that bed and watch to make sure you stayed asleep, to make sure that you didn’t go under again.”

She rested her head in the crook of his neck and he wrapped his arms around her as he continued.

“But you started shivering. You were shivering so hard that your teeth rattled, the whole bed moving. I didn’t know if it was from fear or pain or cold but I hated it. All my life I’ve hated seeing you hurt…even when I was the one hurting you. I would hate myself for doing it. So I lay down beside you. I curled against your back and you went still. I could smell you hair, your skin. I could have kissed your neck. It was like we were…together. It was the happiest I’d been in months. But I knew that somehow I would fuck it up again. I knew I would hurt you somehow, like I had when I tried to warn you about Theo…everything I said to you came out wrong. So when I was sure you were asleep, I got up and sat across the room…but I still watched you all night to make sure you were safe.”

She pulled back to look at him, to hold his face in her hands and kiss his forehead, his wet eyelashes. He captured her lower lip between his own and pulled her into a deep, insistent kiss, his tongue slipping eagerly with hers, his hand dug deep into her hair as he pushed her back onto the floor. Her heart started to race with excitement, with terror, nervousness. He’d been _active_ with women since he was fifteen and she hadn’t even kissed anyone since Theo. Because unlike them she was not someone to give herself lightly. It wasn’t _just fucking_ to her. When she was with a man she wanted it to be for the right reasons, at the right time.

Draco hovered over her and she let her legs fall open, allowing him to wedge himself between, their hips tight together, his hardening erection pressing against her thigh, making her eyes roll back. A sigh escaped her as he bent to kiss her neck, the hollow of her throat, the hill of her collarbone and she arched her back, pushing her chest against his.

“You asked me once if I wished she was you,” he breathed in her ear, his hand slipping under her thin cashmere jumper, over her warm stomach. “I always wished she was you, Hermione. Every time.”

 


	13. The Soothing Serpent

She pulled Draco to his feet and walked towards the bedroom, both of her hands holding tight to one of his. Before letting him sit she pulled his shirt over his head and slipped his pajama pants down over his hips, revealing him to her completely. Her hands were warm but tentative over his skin, lightly tracing the lines of his scars, the curves of his muscles, standing close enough that he could feel her warm breath on his chest. Without a word she explored his body, only once brushing her fingertips over the head of his penis, one slow, feather light stroke down the length of his shaft and back up again before running over the flat plane of his stomach.

These were the hands he’d been waiting for all his life, this clean, kind touch. It was the only touch that felt real, as if something were transferred between them, a thrumming energy like the magic in his blood. Of course she’d seen him naked before, but it was different now, now that he knew it was her. It was different now that he wasn’t broken down, weak and needy. It was different because he wasn’t a child anymore. It was different because he could give something back.

He reached out for her but she backed away and he heard the rustle of fabric, the clunk of heavy shoes being thrown to the floor. After an eternal moment she took his hands and placed them on her naked hips, stepping in close, her breasts soft, warm against his chest. Draco sighed and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her fully into his embrace just to finally hold her, to feel her smooth skin pressed to his. Running his hands over her back he could feel that she was shivering; or was it trembling? Was she afraid? He touched the side of her face and found it wet.

“Hermione,” he whispered, bending down to kiss her cheeks, her lips. “Please don’t cry. What is…”

“I can’t…I…I won’t give you what Pansy gave you…the others…” she said, stumbling over her words, turning to rest her head on his shoulder, sighing as she gathered her thoughts, feeling ridiculous and childlike.

“What? What do you…”

“It’s not...it’s not just sex to me. I won’t let it be just…sex. Not with you. Not us. Not after all this time.” After a long pause she added, “I waited for you Draco.”

His stomach dropped. She’d waited? She was a virgin, giving herself over to him? And she thought him worthy of it? He knew that he didn’t deserve it, but he knew by the way she clung to him, the way she kissed him that she wasn’t going to change her mind no matter how vehemently he tried to protest. He tipped her face up and kissed her mouth, his tongue slipping slowly over hers, a warm and soothing serpent hiding wicked temptation. He sucked at her lower lip, pulling her tight into his arms. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and he kissed harder, coaxing her pent up passion to the surface, any hint of hesitation brushed aside.

“No,” he said, pulling her down to lay beside him, his fingers tickling over her ribs, down to the smooth slope of her hip, his hand hooking beneath her thigh to wrap her around him. “I would never expect that of you. I don’t want that with you.”

He leaned in to kiss the top of her breast, his mouth sliding down to cover her nipple, circling it with his tongue. She sighed, her body squirming in his arms, hands in his hair, clutching him to her chest as he sucked and kissed, his tongue flicking over the hardened bud.

“Wh..what do you want, then? With me?” She breathed as he kissed his way down her stomach, dipping his tongue into her navel and making her gasp. The sound was glorious. He wanted more.

“With you, Hermione, I want the fairy tale.”

 

She was grateful for his blindness, that he couldn’t see the furrow in her brow or the way she bit down on her bottom lip as he moved to lay between her spread thighs. She wasn’t afraid that he would hurt her; that he would push her beyond what she wanted or needed. What she was afraid of was her own reaction. Just the touch of his lips to her breast had set her blood bubbling through her veins, her breath rushing from her lungs in a gasp. These things, these simple, nearly innocent acts…they were old habits to him…things he’d done a thousand times, but Hermione had never felt a man’s mouth on her, had never felt the lightning bolt of arousal that came from having the point of his tongue in her bellybutton, his fingertips running over the bones of her hips. She felt like a schoolgirl, giddy and eager and inexperienced and she was glad that she had somewhere to hide.

Her legs fell open further and he rested his cheek on her thigh, his hand on her stomach, his thumb brushing through the tangle of dark hair between her legs, gentle, slow, warming her from within. His fingers held the promise of ecstasy but he only teased her with a too light touch, stroking over her the skin around her pussy but not coming close to where she needed him, where she could feel a wet heat building. She’d waited so long. Even the times when she’d touched herself she’d never felt this hunger, this need to draw him closer, pull him in.

“I would do anything to see your face when you come for the first time, little lamb.”

She groaned and arched her back, reaching down to run her fingers through his hair as she spread wider in silent invitation. One fingertip ran down the seam of her wet core and she pushed forward against his hand with an eager whine.

“When you saw me in the dungeon with Pansy,” he began, now using two fingers to stroke her, parting and slipping between her wet lips before using her slick arousal to rub the hidden jewel of nerves between them. She gasped again with a mewling cry and his voice dropped, a buttery purr as he swiped at her glistening pussy once with his tongue. “I nearly stopped. I nearly stopped her so I could have you instead. She was nothing to me. Would you have taken me then? Would you have let me lick your cunt up against the dungeon wall? The way you were watching me, I thought you might have.”

“Drac…”

“But you ran away and I sent her home and went to my room and wanked thinking of you, imagining taking you in the dungeons, then in the parlor downstairs, then in the hedge maze where I kissed you for the first time, laying you down on the stone bench and burying myself between your legs.” As if in remembrance he pressed a small, chaste kiss to the inside of her thigh. “Did you ever think of me little mouse?”

 “Y..yes,” she breathed, writhing beneath his touch.

He couldn't have known the effect his words would have on her, whispering these filthy, coarse words as he drove deeper with both his tongue and his fingers. And yet even back then, years ago he'd told her he could tell what she liked...that she wasn't some delicate flower. 

She had spent many a night in her room, her hand moving slowly beneath her blankets, her fingers sunk in her wet pussy as she imagined Draco sneaking in and finding her, replacing her hand with his own, taking her in the dark. And now he was here, and before she could say more he sunk his finger inside her, then pulled out and added another, his thumb circling her clit.

“Oh my God, oh god Draco please,” she pushed down against his hand, trying to get him deeper, her hips bucking in rhythm with his slow thrusts.

As her legs began to tremble around him he licked her, his tongue finding her clit and laving it slowly as he continued to thrust his fingers inside her, focusing on the small wet noises he drew out, the musky scent of her arousal, gathering up every detail and trying to picture in his mind what her face would be like in the throes of ecstasy. Her fingers dug into his hair as she called out his name once again and he felt her walls begin to grip, clenching around his fingers. She tasted like a bright warm sea and he savored every lick, moaning against her clit while pushing her to a bucking, twisting orgasm, his name falling from her lips over and over; a mantra of pleasure. After years of putting her through so much pain, it was all he wanted to give.

Her heavy breathing was the only sound as he crawled up to lay beside her, kissing her as his damp fingers stroked her cheek. She rolled her hips against him, twisting him onto his back.

“Thank you,” she said, kissing his mouth, his nose, both of his eyelids. “Thank you Draco."

“I love you,” he whispered, running his fingers through the thick waves of her hair.

With a shaking hand she moved to grasp his hard length nestled in a thatch of golden hair between his legs. He hissed a breath out through his teeth and covered her hand as she ran her thumb over the head.

“I want you inside me,” she said, stroking him, one leg thrown over his hip, her body warm and pressed completely to his.

He pushed her hand aside and kissed her.

“No,” he said, explaining between soft, feathering kisses. “I don’t want to take that from you. Not until I can see your face, look you in the eye. Not until I can watch you come apart. I want to watch you the whole time. I want to _be there_ completely."

“Draco…we don’t know if…”

He put his fingers to her lips to quiet her and pulled her close, whispering into her hair.

“I do know. I don’t know much of anything about the future but I do know that I’ll see you again Hermione. I have faith that this will be undone. You’ll find the cure. That’s when we’ll be together. The moment that I can see.”

 

She’d read everything she could find on Orion’s Curse and it _was_ reversible. It was reversible if he was truly remorseful and truly forgiven for the wrong he’d done, the wrong he’d been cursed for. But if it wasn’t Nott who’d cursed him he could have been struck down for a different sin, a different broken heart, a different innocent cruelly wronged. He’d been away for nearly two years and a lot could have happened in that time. Her breath stuck in her lungs as she thought about him finding another woman, holding another woman. She believed that he cared for her, but she also knew what he needed when he was frightened or lonely. She knew what he sought.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. “I just felt your whole body twitch. Am I hurting you?”

“No, I was just thinking about you…about how long you were out in the field…the people you trained with…people you met…”

He tipped her face up and kissed her, a deep, drawn out kiss that rippled through her like a warm wave, his hand running down the side of her neck to the hollow of her throat, his thumb running over her collarbone.

“There was one,” he said, still kissing her, his lips peppering her jawline and forehead with gentle pecks. “One witch that kept me company when I broke down in training. She was sweet, and pretty…and I felt terrible,” he continued. “Because when I held her and kissed her, when she fell asleep on my chest…I was wishing she was someone else, just like I always have. It wasn’t fair to her. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone. None of them could measure up to you. And so after her...there was no one.”

She smiled and found his mouth again, tamping down the ugly jealousy that was sneaking to the surface.

“At least let me…” she moved down his body, prepared to pleasure him with her mouth as she had before, but Draco drew on every ounce of willpower he’d ever had and stopped her.

“No, Hermione. This was all for you:” He pulled her up to lay on his chest just as the rain began, wind whipping against the windows. “I wanted to give something to you. Now I want to just lay here in the dark in your bed and hold you. It's almost like being home."

He pulled the duvet up to cover them and she kissed the skin in the middle of his chest, her fingertips drawing circles and swirls over his skin.

“Draco,” she said as the room filled with dusky twilight, her body growing heavy with sleepiness.

“Yes?”

“I forgive you.”

 


	14. Lacrimas Innocentum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay. The holidays, some personal crap...being a lazy writer...all of those things contributed to the lateness of this chapter. It may be a week or so before the next as I'm also cranking out two stories for SD Smutfest and Kinkfest, so watch for those decidedly less....heartwrenching pieces coming soon. :) Thank you so much for your support. Any questions or comments are greatly appreciated, as always.

She woke up with the light in her eyes, her arm stretched across the bed she hadn’t slept in for months, nestled deep in her favorite down filled duvet and pillows. But she well rested and comfortable; but she was alone. When she had finally drifted off the night before her head had been on Draco’s chest, her leg wrapped around his, his heartbeat in her ear. Now the sheets were cold, the blanket pulled up as if he’d been gone for a while. As if he’d left her.

“Draco?”

 

He was sitting by the window, an old quilt wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. The window was cracked open an inch, allowing a bit of the brisk winter breeze in, the smell of the ocean, the sound of the water crashing against the cliffs. He could even taste the brine of the air.

He wished he could see it.

Sometime in the night Hermione had shifted, rolling onto her back, letting go of him in her sleep. He’d held onto her hand, his fingers laced with hers, and listened to her breathing, deep and slow…the occasional whimper or mumble as she dreamed.

She’d forgiven him. Whispered in the dark, the words had stopped his breath, shot through him like a stupefy spell. It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that those words were what he’d been waiting for, what he’d been craving. It was why he’d been wandering the country, fighting, lashing out, lost. He’d been hungering for it ever since the first time he’d abandoned her under the willow tree in school, the first time he’d seen the hurt on her face when she overheard him calling her a mudblood. Ever since he’d hit her. Every one of those moments still ached, rotting him from within while he waited for her forgiveness.

 

When he was a boy he’d accidentally set one of his mother’s rose bushes on fire with an errant spell, destroying a dozen or more tender, not yet blooming shrubs. It was her favorite variety of heirloom rose, Eye of the Alchemist. With its beautiful blood red and golden petals and its use in several beauty and medicinal potions, she was understandably heartbroken at seeing the little blackened pile of twigs, her son cowering sheepishly beside it. 

“I’m sorry mum, I was just practicing. I didn’t know…”

“You know better than to practice spells where things can be destroyed. We have more grounds here than you could explore in a week…why would you do that here?”

He’d felt embarrassed, humiliated. He was only eight but he’d felt particularly childish and stupid while she chastised him. All he wanted was for it to be over. All he wanted was to go back to what it used to be…when she was smiling, when she was laughing with him, twenty minutes earlier when she wasn’t angry, when he was still the one that made her happy.

“I said I was sorry,” he repeated, tears falling from his big silver eyes. “Don’t be mad at me mum.”

“I’m not mad, Draco,” she’d said, shaking her head, sighing as she vanished the damaged plants. “I’m disappointed.” And with that she’d walked away.

He should have been pleased that he wasn’t punished, that she didn’t tell Lucius; but instead he felt…empty. He felt as if something had changed, that he bore a stain, something he could never get back and he realized that he would have preferred a whipping to having his mother disappointed in him.

 

As the years had passed with Hermione he’d felt that same emptiness, that same loss. She’d detached from him completely, eventually not even bothering to be angry, to seek revenge or retribution. Ruining his perfect marks had been her last act of revenge, her last real reaction. After that she’d simply written him off. She’d gone cold and polite, unaffected by his words. But now that he knew that she’d given up the comfort of the manor to become a healer, to find him and bring him home; now that he knew that she’d been feeding and bathing and caring for him for months, he was filled again. And her forgiveness had lifted a weight from his shoulders that he barely remembered he’d been carrying it had been so long.

If she meant it.

He could tell that morning was approaching, the air warming, and pulled himself out of bed to sit by the window, willing himself not to take her, not to wake her with his tongue between her legs or sucking on her breasts, feeling her tense and twitch beneath him. He willed himself to be different. It had to be different with her. He sat for a long time before the sun was high enough that he could feel the weak winter light on his face.

“Draco?”

He turned towards her voice and heard the sheets rustling, her feet padding across the floor. With a few steps she was in front of him, kneeling, her hands on his thighs.

“Good morning,” he said, running a hand through her rumpled hair.

"Draco,” she said, her voice bright and eager, “can you…can you see me?”

“No,” he said, offering a weak but sincere smile. “Not yet, little mouse. Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out soon.”

“I thought…I thought if I…”

“What?”

She stood then and he could hear her muttering under her breath. She knew something he didn’t.

“It’s called Orion’s Curse. It’s one of the darkest and most ancient malleable curses and one you probably have forgotten about since I…”

“Did my malleable curses homework in school for three months,” he said, finishing her sentence.

She was quiet for a moment, no doubt surprised that he would hold the details of that memory for so long.

“It was created in the fourteenth century in Italy. It’s cast by someone who knows you, it has to be because the nature of the…” She continued to talk, explaining the details of the spell, the wand movements and incantation, the history of its creation, but his mind had already started to spin with clouded memory, smells and sounds and flashes of that night, pulling pictures together into a cohesive scene. It had been raining and cold and he’d been ambushed on his way back to the safehouse.

 

_“If I were you Malfoy, I’d change my hair color out on the battlefield. Someone might recognize you from a mile away.”_

_“Nott. If it isn’t the traitor prick of Wiltshire!”_ He’d said. _“Fighting with the muggles because none of us can stand the sight of you, is that it?”_

_“Or maybe it’s because I’m not mired in the past, holding onto some aristocratic caste system.”_

The two of them had exchanged barbs for a few moments before Nott finally pulled his wand, the tip glowing a sickly yellow color that pulsed brighter when pointed at Draco.

_“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, Malfoy. I can’t think of an arsehole more deserving. Lacrimas Innocentum.”_

 

“It was Nott,” Draco blurted out, interrupting Hermione’s lesson. His unseeing eyes were wide with disbelief and she rushed back to his side, taking his hands in hers.

He could still feel the sting of the hex ripping through his mind, the hot blood pouring down his cheeks. His heart had fluttered, an erratic, frightening rhythm for a few moments before settling back to normal, his whole chest aching. He remembered running blind through the forest, stumbling into a group of fighters. Nott’s battalion had knocked him to the ground, kicking him with steel-toed boots, one man stepping on his neck, laughing. He’d thought he was going to die until he heard the voices of the rest of his team.

“You remember? The incantation? The wand motion?” She needed to be sure.

“Lacrimas. Lacrimas…”

“Innocentum.” They both said at the same time.

 

It should have lifted a weight from her shoulders. She should have been celebrating having solved the mystery, found the cure. And yet he sat before her, still blinded. Again the idea of him having wronged someone else crept into her mind and again she tried to push it aside.

“Draco, did he say anything to you before hand? Anything to indicate why he was casting that particular spell?”

“I don’t…he said…he told me he’d been waiting a long time,” he said. “He said that no one was more deserving. Obviously he was getting revenge on me for telling you his true intentions…why?”

“It’s a curse that blinds the target for their unforgiven crimes against an innocent party.”

Draco frowned, his eyes lowered, picking at the cuticles of his thumbs. He looked uncomfortable, cornered.

“He cursed you for me,” she finished, moving away to sit on the edge of the bed. “But I don’t understand. It’s supposed to be broken…forgiveness…it breaks the curse.”

Her voice faded to nearly a whisper as she finished the sentence, withdrawing into herself and Draco turned his face towards the window.

“Maybe it takes more than words,” he added…his tone equally small.

 

She went to him again, kneeling in front of him again and he could feel her hands on his thighs. Neither of them had bothered to dress, their nakedness a perfect representation of all that had happened since she’d come home; a stripping away of pretense and class and history and names. They were just skin and bones, blood and tears.

“You don’t believe it,” she said, the realization hitting her like a punch to the gut. “You don’t believe that I’ve forgiven you.”

 

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, but the breath rushed from his lungs in a sigh and he blinked. No. He didn’t. What reason would she have for forgiving him? Why would she let him get away with what he’d done to her, the things he’d said? It wasn’t that he just didn’t believe her…it was that he’d never believed anyone. Pansy, who said she loved him but still slept with half the purebloods in Wiltshire waiting to find someone to contract her marriage. Crabbe said he was the smartest, funniest wizard in England but Draco knew it was because Crabbe was nothing without him, needing his influence, his popularity. His mother told him he was handsome, brave, miraculous…but she was his mother. Thinking back on everyone he’d known, everyone whose opinion he’d held close, the only person he’d ever believed was his father and it was because his Lucius knew the ugly truth. His father dug his talons into Draco’s heart and pulled out thick ropes of muck, throwing it in his face. There was so much more honesty in hate. Even seeing him with Pansy had disgusted him.

_“You don’t marry the girl who gets your cock hard,” he’d said to Draco at the archery range, loosing three consecutive arrows into the bullseye. “You marry the girl that brings your name more power.”_  

 

“Why did you want me last night?” He asked, still keeping his face turned towards the window, the rising sun. It wasn’t getting any warmer. “You said you wanted me inside you.”

There was no answer. Perhaps in the light of day, without the haze of lust, the afterglow of an orgasm she realized how foolish she’d been. Having Draco fuck her wouldn’t have changed her life, made her whole…it would have ruined her. Perhaps she knew that now, and he waited to feel her pull away. Instead her warm hands ran up the insides of his legs. She pressed a kiss to the inside of his thigh, went up on her knees and kissed the hollow of his hip where he was slouched in the overstuffed chair, then to the flat plane of his belly. Draco reached down and pulled her into his lap, holding her against his chest, her legs straddling his. She rolled her hips against his hardening cock.

“Why did you wait for me? Why would you deprive yourself? What if I’d never come home?” He asked, his fingers threading through her hair, over the back of her neck, the little bumps of bone that made up her spine. “What if I’d never wanted you…”

“I didn’t deprive myself. There was no one else I wanted. And I knew you’d come back to me. No one else made me feel like you did, Draco. Even when you hurt me, even when you broke my heart I knew you were in there somewhere. The real you, the boy who gave me his dragon, the boy who fixed my dress for my mother's funeral, the man who rescued me from the forest…who gave me my first kiss.”

She pressed her lips to his and his mouth opened, warm tongue slipping with hers, but she kept the kiss slow, gentle, pulling away to nip at his lip or kiss the corner of his mouth, stopping to brush her lips over his eyebrow, her finger over her eyelashes. Her kisses moved to his neck, a lick at his collarbone. And then she stopped.

“I wanted you inside me Draco because I wanted you to feel what it can be like when it does mean something, when you want it to mean something.”

She pulled back, her hands on his cheeks and saw that he was crying; crying in typical stoic, Malfoy fashion, without a hint of sound, no trembling lip or shaking shoulders, just crystalline tears running down his cheeks as he stared out towards the water, his eyes a bit blue in the morning light.

“Draco…”

“Your first time with a man and you want it with a tosser like me.”

 

He closed is eyes as she kissed the tears from his cheeks, resting her head against his chest as he stroked her hair. Just sitting there with her, feeling the sun, feeling her skin pressed to his, it was better than he’d felt in years. He did want her. A thousand times he’d imagined being with her. He’d imagined heat and passion, anger even…kissing her hard to stop her from talking, or throwing her against a wall to grind his hips against her. He’d dreamed of making her squeal in shock, her wrists pinned against stone. But for some reason he didn’t want that anymore. He did want to be inside her, to be her first, her only. He still felt that need to possess her, and yet it occurred to him only then that it wasn’t because he wanted to get off, or because he wanted to conquer her, to claim her or mark her as his. It was because he wanted her to be with him, to feel it with him, to feel euphoria and ecstasy and those blank moments of silent bliss in the moments after...with him.

“Why did you sigh just then?” She asked, moving so that she sat across him, instead of tempting him further, her legs spread over his prick.

“I want you. I’ve always wanted you,” he said.

The sound of her laugh was like a wave of cool water, like swallowing a hangover potion. He smiled.

“Why would that make you sigh? You look utterly defeated at realizing it,” she said, turning his face to her to kiss him again. “Because you want to see me.”

He nodded, his fingertips drawing swirls down the length of her back.

“What is it you wanted to see?” She asked, her own hand smoothing over the scars on his chest, each of them exploring the other’s body with chaste, light strokes, relishing the feel of warm skin beneath their touch. There were long pauses between their words, long bouts of silence where they just took pleasure in existing.

“I wanted to see your face when we were finally together…just you and me…I wanted to see the look in your eyes when I finally took…”

He stopped, his breath caught in his throat as the realization clicked into place. He tipped her face up to his and kissed her, both of his hands framing her jaw.

“I love you Hermione. I’ve always loved you. You shouldn’t have waited for me. You shouldn’t have built me up as some dream, some achievement…I’m not the lover you waited for. I never was. I don’t know that I ever could be…all I’ve ever done is take.”

 

She shifted again, sitting astride his thighs but reaching down to stroke him while she leant in to press her forehead to his.

“That isn’t true, Draco. Last night all you did was give. I don’t care what the reason was; you put my pleasure first. You wouldn’t even let me touch you.”

“I did, I wanted you to stop being sad. You were crying. You were nervous. I’m tired of you being sad because of me. It’s all I’ve ever done.”

Her fingers were slow, feathering up and down his cock as they kissed, her other hand threading through his hair. He could feel the tiniest tip and rock of her

“I’m cold,” she said. “There’s a storm coming in from the north. Come back to lay down with me, under the blankets.”

He groaned as she gripped him, stroking a bit faster, teasing his erection back to life. He kissed her jaw, her neck, the hollow of her throat, his blood beginning to heat as he felt her wetness against him. She stood and pulled him to his feet, holding his hands tight in hers and he smiled.

“I’m not tired though,” he said, nuzzling the crook of her neck.

“Neither am I.”


	15. Beautiful

The day was bright through the frosted windows even though dark clouds brought warning of a fierce winter storm. Draco and Hermione lay naked in the tiny cottage bedroom, their limbs twined together as if they’d grown that way, her head on his chest, his fingertips stroking circles down her back. Alone and with nowhere to be, no one to answer to, they made no attempt to rush. Without any words at all they gave each other reassurances in their touches, kisses, their sated sighs…as if each believed the other would evaporate into thin air were they to stop.

 

Hermione rose up on one elbow to trace the outline of his lips before kissing his mouth; her movements slow and deliberate. Each moment between them was a ritual of her own design, Draco himself the altar for her magic. They kissed deeply, tongues slipping and stroking together reaching far into the other’s soul. She pulled back to kiss the corners of his lips, the dip of his cupid’s bow. This was the mouth that had told her about mermaids and hippogriffs, that had smiled at her over the breakfast table. It was the mouth that shared her first kiss; a kiss she could still feel even now, the pressure of it, the warmth of his soft, eager lips, the slight trembling in his fingers as they rested on her shoulder. It was the mouth that had called out to her in the rain. He parted his lips and she kissed him again, with different intention. Because this was also the mouth that had lied to her; the mouth that had called her a fool and a mudblood bitch. It had sneered and snarled and snapped, spitting venom, insulting her behind her back to save face with his friends. But she knew, she believed, that was all over now.

 

Draco rolled her onto her back, stretching his body over hers to feel their flesh pressed together. Her breasts were warm against his skin, his hands cradling her head as they kissed, his thumbs stroking her petal soft cheeks. He could feel her heartbeat through her ribs, the way she shuddered with each intake of breath. Laying kisses along her throat he found her racing pulse and ran his tongue over it. He was desperately searching his mind to remember the last time he saw her, the details of her face, the exact color of her eyes, the curve of her smile. It had been so long since he had seen her smile. Beneath him, in his arms, he could feel her trembling.

 

“Don’t be scared,” he whispered, his hand moving to stroke her breast, his mouth near her ear. “I want you to feel beautiful,” he murmured, moving to take her hardened nipple between his lips, sucking and kissing until her back arched toward him. “This time, for once, I want to be the one to make you feel beautiful.”

 

“I’m not afraid.”

 

She turned her head to kiss the palm of his hand. This was the hand that had given her the bronze dragon, the hand that held tight to hers, guiding her through the hedge maze for the first time, the hand held out to her when she lay wet and broken on the forest floor, sure she was going to die. Draco ran his fingertips over her lips and she sucked them in over her tongue, swiping over the warm salt essence of his skin. This was also the hand that had knocked her to the floor, the hand that had waved her off as he abandoned her at school. This hand, these fingers, had hurt her, but that too was over.

 

Draco moved, kissing her mouth with a bit more insistence and nudging her legs apart gently as his hand found her hip, urging her to wrap her leg around his.

 

“Not yet,” she said.

 

“No, not yet.” He kissed her temple. “I just want to feel you against me.”

 

She moved to let him settle between her thighs, his hand moving to find the slick center of her sex.

 

“Already so wet. Wet and warm,” he whispered against her lips.

 

Two fingers sunk inside her, slowly in and slower still out, setting an easy rhythm as his thumb found the little pearl of nerves hidden in her folds.

 

“You said you thought of me before, of being with me,” he said, his fingers moving a bit faster, with more purpose, her arousal making it easy for him to add a third finger. He smiled as she was stretched and filled, moaning, wrapping her leg around him and bucking against his hand. “Tell me what you thought of, little lamb. Tell me how you touched yourself thinking of me.”

 

“I…I dreamt of you coming to my room,” she said, her voice low and strained. “I imagined that you would find me naked. You…oh my god…you would watch me touching myself and get in bed with me.” Her breath hitched her throat as he continued thrusting and pumping inside her, her wetness dripping down his fingers. When she spoke again her voice was breathy, weak. “I…I imagined that you would flip me onto my…s-stomach…pull my h-hair back, pin me down and push into me without a word…ohhh…oh God…” Throwing her head back she exposed her throat to him and he took it, sucking at the pulse in her neck, licking the taut tendons leading to her collarbone.

 

Her admission surprised him. Of course his fantasies of being with her had been dark and rough, nothing like the soft, pastel hued romance most girls imagined, but he never expected Hermione to want to be ravished. He never expected her thoughts to be so…dirty, to crave the intensity like he did. Spurred on by her imagination his hand moved faster, deeper as she spoke and she pushed back with begging whimpers, grinding her hips against the thumb he pressed to her hardened clit.

 

“Fuck Draco…I’ve wanted you for so long…”

 

“And when you imagined those things, did you touch yourself?” he asked, kissing her neck, the soft patch of skin behind her ear, giving her the filthy talk he knew she wanted. “Did you slip your pretty fingers into your tight little pussy trying to make yourself come?”

 

“Oh God, oh Draco…please…” She was torn between wanting him to stop and begging for more. More than once he brought her just to the edge of bliss before pausing and pulling away to let her catch her breath. It was both delicious and infuriating.

 

“Tell me,” he said, and she could hear the wicked, sultry grin on his face. “Tell me how you made yourself come so I can see it in my mind.”

 

“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop,” she writhed and rolled her hips, reaching down with one hand to grab his wrist, guiding his movements while driving her tongue deep in his mouth. She felt wild and wanton…as if she’d never get enough of this feeling, this climbing, racing, deep, all consuming need.

 

“Be a good girl and tell me,” he cooed. “I know you want to tell me, lamb.”

 

With that he pulled his hand away completely and slid down her body to lick at her dripping core, his nose brushing over her as she sunk both of her hands into his hair, her heels digging into his back.

 

“I…ahh...I used. Oh fuck I used…”

 

“What’s that, love?” He kissed the tender skin of her thighs.

 

“I used a pillow,” she said, twisting and arching, her legs thrown over his shoulders. “I put a pillow between my legs…I fuck, oh God. I humped and bucked…I fucked a pillow thinking of you fucking me instead.”

 

Satisfied with her answer, he suckled at her clit, humming against her heated sex as she finally went over the edge, crying out as her orgasm crashed through her body.

 

“I can picture it perfectly,” he said, kissing his way back up to her mouth, kissing her with wet and swollen lips while gently positioning himself between her legs, the head of his cock pushing at her entrance.

 

But he didn’t move his hips. His kisses were soft, deep. He was taking his time with her, letting her recover while stroking her hair, imagining what her flushed cheeks would look like, her eyes glittering in the gathering dark, the look of sated bliss on her face.

 

“Nothing broke my heart like seeing you kiss Theo,” he said. “No. Not kiss. It was the way you smiled at him, touched his arm to get his attention. It was the way you floated through the door after your dates with him, when I _knew_ …I knew he was as rotten as I was.”

 

“Draco…”

 

“I knew you would never smile at me like that again, like you did when we were small.”

 

He felt her fingers trace over his features, his eyelashes, the wrinkles in his furrowed brow. Her touch was soothing, warm and feather light.

 

“The night you saved me from the woods,” she began, her hands moving to stroke his back, down to the curve of his ass, pulling him closer to her heat. “You wanted to kiss me,” she said. “I could feel it.”

 

“I did. But I couldn’t. Not after everything I’d done, everything I’d said. But when I thought I might have lost you…”

 

She hooked her leg up over his and tipped her hips forward, capturing his mouth in a kiss.

 

“I want to feel you inside me,” she said. “I’m ready. I want you. I forgive you, Draco. Please.”

 

He drew a deep breath. She was wet and he was aching. He’d dreamt of it for years, never believing she would allow it, that she would actually beg for it. Another slow thrust of her hips urged him on and he pushed inside her slick core; a slow, steady stroke until he filled her completely, thrilling at the sound of her satisfied moan.

 

“Yes, oh God Draco, thank you,” she whispered, her fingernails digging into his back, the buck of her hips encouraging him to start a slow, steady rhythm. “Tell me how it feels,” she said, her tongue flicking at the shell of his ear. “Because it feels perfect to me.”

 

Draco closed his eyes and pushed faster, already feeling the first low pulses of his climax building in the small of his back.

 

“It is perfect, love. You’re perfect,” he breathed. “So warm and soft, tight around my cock.” She moaned again and he realized that she wanted him to talk, to hear him purr more filth into her ear. “I would do anything to be able to see that pretty pink pussy wrapped around my shaft, my prick sliding in and out…”

 

Her nails dragged down his back and she kissed him again, slipping her tongue over his, sucking hard at his bottom lip. He could feel her walls rippling, clenching around him, but he wanted it to last. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he flipped onto his back, pulling her on top of him.

 

“Lean back,” he said, on hand on her chest. “Look, look at how you take me in.”

 

She fell silent, but he could feel the angle change, the tighter fit. Her hips rolled slowly and then he felt her fingers between them, stroking his shaft as he pulled out.

 

“Rub your clit,” he said, reaching down to cover her hand with his own. “I want to feel you getting yourself off. I want to feel you come again.”

 

“Draco,” she breathed, pulling his hand up to her breast, which he gratefully kneaded, twisting and rolling her hardened nipple between two fingers. Her rhythm stuttered and her muscles clenched around him. He thrust up inside her, hard and fast, hands tight on her hips.

 

“Oh God. Oh my god, Draco…I can’t…I can’t hold on…I can’t…” She shivered and bucked and fell forward onto his chest. Her breath on his neck triggered his own orgasm and he held tight to her body as he emptied inside her, letting his breath out on a long groan of relief.

 

They lay together in the little bed, catching their breath while Hermione ran her fingers through his hair, laying kisses across his chest, her heart still racing behind her own ribs.

 

“I love you Draco," she said, touching his face, threading her fingers through his damp hair. I need you to believe that I love you. And I forgive you.”

 

“I love you forever, Hermione. I always have.”

 

It occurred to him only then that his eyes were closed. Clutching her tight, he prayed silently to whatever gods were listening and opened them.

 

It was twilight and the room was purple grey with fading sun filtered through the gathering clouds. The room itself was much smaller than he had imagined, sparsely decorated in white and yellow. There was a dresser covered in bottles and brushes and an old mahogany jewelry box that Narcissa had given her for Christmas. Beside the window was the chair they’d sat in draped in blankets and discarded clothes, a little collection of paintings of the sea clustered on the wall. The door to the bedroom was open and he could see out into the living room to the stone fireplace and the sofa where he’d dictated his letter. He could see. She lay, unknowing, in his arms and he took those quiet moments to look at how the light caught the curls of her dark hair twisting over his arm, feathering out over his shoulder. He drew a finger over the cluster of freckles on her chest and over the little bumps that made up the bones of her spine. His eye followed the long sloping plane of her back dipping down to her backside where the crisp white sheet was draped over her hips. His newly opened eyes stung with tears, his whole body heavy with relief and the exhaustion of finally having released the tension he’d held for months. Still, he reached down and tipped her face up to stare into her caramel brown eyes, to look right into them: the eyes and face he’d thought of every day for years…the little beauty mark on her cheek that was uniquely her. He openly stared at her plump, rosy lips, her tired and satisfied smile. When he focused on her gaze he watched with delight as her eyes went wide, glittering in the darkness, the pink blush deepening on her cheeks and spreading to her neck. He smiled. He kissed her lips. He held her face tight in his hands.

 

“Hermione,” he whispered, stroking her cheek. “I can see you.”


	16. Open

_“I can see you.”_

 

His eyes were clear and grey, pupils wide in the dusky light of the bedroom and she couldn’t stop staring, watching as his eyes swept over her body, to her mouth, back to her eyes, a smile spreading across his lips. He looked more alive and filled with energy than he had in months, an electricity bubbling beneath the surface, and yet looking at him, knowing that he truly saw her made Hermione feel suddenly shy and she was filled with an urge to run, to hide herself. Pulling the sheet up to cover her body she reached out and touched his stubbled cheek, her thumb feathering lightly over his eyelashes as she forced those uneasy feelings to the back of her mind.

“You can?”

He nodded and she summoned her wand, lighting the candle sconces around the room, casting them in a low golden light. Seeing him illuminated like that, his skin like a marble statue, made stronger and even more beautiful by its silvery scars, she felt that surge of love…possessiveness, need, that she had only hours before. If she remembered how he touched her, what he said to her she could choke down the fear that was bubbling in her belly.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, his hand finding her hip beneath the sheets, pulling her close to his chest. “It broke my heart when I couldn’t picture you anymore, when I couldn’t see the exact lines and shapes, the precise color of your eyes. But you’re here now and I can see you and you’re more beautiful than I remember.”

He kissed her; her lips, her jaw, temple and eyelids, but felt her body stiffen at his touch and her muscles twitch as his mouth moved over her skin. He pulled back to see the furrow in her brow, her eyes looking somewhere over his shoulder. In his time in the dark he’d forgotten how her face could destroy him, the sadness, the anger, worry. It destroyed him because he’d usually been the one to cause it.

“What’s wrong?” He said, running his thumb over the wrinkle in her forehead.

She smiled and quickly kissed his lips before jumping out of bed, the sheet wrapped around her naked body.

“Nothing,” she said. “I—I was only shocked. Surprised! I can’t believe it happened just like that! Like magic!” She laughed a bit too loudly, leaning against the doorframe between bedroom and living room, chewing on her bottom lip.

 

She was across the room, leaving the room, leaving him. He knew immediately that her smile had been forced, twitching at the corners. Now that he could see her, he could pick up all the tiny cues of her discomfort in his presence. In the past months he could only hear her sighs, her fingertips tapping on a table edge, her laugh. But now she couldn’t hide. He didn’t want her to hide. Seeing her standing there, her body draped in the white sheet, long arms and slim legs, the fabric falling like cream from the curve of her hip, reminded him of the old Grecian statues of the Olympians…Aphrodite and Diana…Persephone.

She could see in his expression that he didn’t believe a word of her lie, so clutching the sheet tight to her chest she looked out the window as the words tumbled from her lips.

“It’s just that I realized what time it was. We were…we were in bed all night…all day. It’s getting late and I didn’t make you dinner yesterday or breakfast this morning. I’m hungry so you must be starving. I just figured I would...” she forced a smile. “I figured I would fix us something.”

She hurried off to the kitchen, tucking the sheet around her chest like a long, trailing gown, her hair a wild wave of caramel pouring over her shoulders, down the creamy white skin of her back. He wanted to watch her forever.

Although she prayed that he wouldn’t, Draco followed her, entirely naked, so comfortable and unashamed in his nudity that it nearly made her angry. Why couldn’t he feel as exposed and self-conscious as she did? Instead of looking at him she searched the cupboards for dried pasta and jarred sauce.

“Hey,” he said quietly. Then, raising his voice a bit he called out, “Granger.”

His tone was light, almost playful, but still she whirled on him with surprising anger.

“Don’t call me that. I hate that.”

“What?” He looked as if he’d been slapped, eyes wide with confusion.

“You know what. I’ve hated it from the moment we stepped inside that bloody school. Don’t call me that.”

“I’m sorry Hermione,” he said, approaching her slowly, as if she were an animal caught in a trap, hands raised in surrender until he got close enough to take her hand in his, his thumb rubbing circles into her wrist. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve called you that for years and you never said a thing.”

“Would you have listened?” She asked, pulling her hand free and making her way to the sink.

“Touche, darling. Now tell me, what is it that’s really bothering you?” He asked, grabbing her wrist to hold her still. “Don’t lie to me anymore Hermione. I thought we were past all that.” His grip was tight, but not enough to hurt. It was simply meant to hold her steady, keep her close. “I saw your face change the minute you knew that I could see you again. So what is it?”

She wanted to answer him, to move past this feeling, but that her discomfort, her sudden panic had come as a surprise to her as well. Finally meeting his gaze after months of waiting should have been the happiest moment of her life. Laying beside him in bed, their naked bodies pressed together, the memory of their first time still fresh in their minds, taste still on their lips, it should have filled her with warmth, euphoria. Instead she’d felt her stomach drop, a stutter in her heartbeat. There was a tightness in her throat as soon as his eyes focused on hers. Whatever it was, she’d needed to get away. Now, still avoiding his gaze, she shook her head and he let go of her arm, walking silently from the room. Not surprisingly, it made her feel worse. Being away from him at that moment felt like tumbling through space. After setting a pot of water to boil, Hermione dug through the back of her cupboards and found a nearly full bottle of Oban, a muggle Scotch she’d developed an occasional taste for. Before leaving the kitchen with two glasses, she took a shot right from the bottle, shivering involuntarily as it burned down her throat.

 

 

Thankfully, Draco had pulled on a pair of grey joggers and was sitting on the sofa, Gerald the Dragon walking up his forearm, flapping his tiny bronze wings. Hermione handed him a glass and gave him a generous pour before sitting down with her own drink, directly across from him. He looked up at her and smiled; a lazy, sleepy smile, familiar and soft; and she fought back a desire to drop her sheet and go sit in his lap.

“I’m surprised you still have him,” he said, setting the dragon on the coffeetable where it curled up and went still.

“Well of course!” She said, happy for the change of subject. “He’s my first pet…and the trigger for my magic.”

“I don’t know about that,” Draco said, taking a gulp of his scotch. “I thought I was the trigger. I recall you being pretty angry that day. I made you angry.”

He was smiling at her, but she could see that his memories of that day weren’t all happy nostalgia. Perhaps it was because it was the first time they’d fought, the first time she’d heard him declare their differences out loud.  _I'm magic. You're just a girl._

“It wasn’t just you,” she said, leaning back in the leather reading chair. “No one thought I was magical. It was a rare instance in our family, and there had never been consecutive generations.”

She looked at anything but him; the caramel colored liquid in her crystal glass, the newly lit fire growing and crackling, the books on her shelf. Now that he could see her he stared with such intensity that she felt it low in her belly…a thrumming heat. And yet it scared her, too.

“I was so relieved when my magic manifested,” she continued, “I felt like my life would finally get better…get easier. It meant that I was _somebody._ ” She paused, wondering if she should admit the rest. “I knew that it meant we could go to school together, that we could…be together more often. That barrier didn’t separate us anymore. I thought that maybe your parents would like me more…that _Wiltshire_ would like me more now that I was one of them. I had no idea what a mudblood or a muggleborn or a halfblood was. I just thought magic was magic. You and your friends made sure to disabuse me of that little illusion.”

He was frowning and threw back the rest of his drink, slamming it down on the table.

“I said I was sorry, Hermione. I’ve told you a hundred times in the last day alone that I wish I’d never done those things. I can’t go back and change them.”

“I know, but it doesn’t take away the hurt I felt at the time. If it hurts you to hear me talk about it…”

“No,” he said, sighing, holding up a hand. “You’re right. It’s like cleaning an ugly wound, sucking the poison from a viper bite. It’s just…” he reached for the bottle and poured another drink. “It embarrasses me. It’s humiliating to be shown who I was…who all of us were.”

“Good,” Hermione said. “Because it wasn’t just me you hurt. It was my friend Claire…Michael….the other muggleborns at our school. You don’t have to be in love with someone to treat them with dignity.”

They were quiet then and she could see Draco stewing in his discomfort with a deep frown and furrowed brow. He downed the shot of scotch he’d poured and fell back against the sofa, focused on the fire.

“But I’ve already said I forgive you and I meant it. It’s not right for me to hold it over your head to hurt you if I’ve said that I want to start over. It’s like we’re new people from here. Lilac and her soldier,” she said with a bit of a musical lilt.

When he looked up at her she was smiling. It was genuine and beautiful, but with a hint of sadness. She still hadn’t told him everything. There was still poison festering in the wound.

“Why did you run from me when I looked into your eyes?” He asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring her down, pinning her in place. She would have to answer. He would get his answer if he had to chase her into the sea.

“I was afraid,” she said, taking the last sip of her scotch and looking to pour another.

“Of me?”

“I’ve known you all my life, Draco. I’ve known you when you were kind to me, when you were cruel to me, when you wanted me, when you hated me…” She listed the phases of their relationship off as if they were an ever growing list of exhaustions, hills on a roller coaster she couldn’t get off of, but before giving her last reason she paused and looked him right in the eye, those icy silver blue eyes that she’d tried to read for so long, tried to translate their gaze, sometimes failing spectacularly and ending up destroyed. “I’ve known you to trick me to get what you need, to get what you want, with no regard of how it hurt me. I guess I was afraid that now that your curse was broken and you were back to your old self…now that you’d gotten your forgiveness you would have no need for me.”

“Hermione,”

She shook her head, knowing that if she opened her mouth she would start sobbing. Whether he was going to declare his undying love or laugh in her face and walk out the door, she wasn’t prepared to hear it yet. Standing and rewrapping her sheet, she moved to walk past him.

“I have to check on dinner…”

 

 

Draco’s arm shot out, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her to stand in front of him. He held firm to her hips, pulling her between his spread thighs until he could rest his head on her stomach, his skin, his breath, warm and inviting. Hermione ran a single hand through his hair and he sighed, his arms wrapped around her.

“I know it’s impossible to believe someone like me,” he said. “I don’t deserve to ask you to trust me. But being out there, alone, thinking I was going to die without having told you how I really felt…it struck me. It changed me. You can't imagine what it's like to be out there fighting every day...wondering if you'd live to see the next safehouse. Seeing people...wizards dying in front of me, watching muggleborns thrown in the same pile of dead as ten generation purebloods, rich piled on top of the poor, lit made it all seem ridiculous…this…separation, this bigotry. Before I even knew it was you I wanted to regain my sight so I could go home to you, go find you. It was the only thing that kept me going. You kept me alive.”

He tipped his head up, holding her hips. Seeing the want and desperation and…yes…love…in his eyes made her want him. His hands moved to the edge of the sheet, slipping beneath it to touch the skin of her stomach, the curve of her backside, and she bent down to kiss his mouth, holding her eyes open as she did, heat building between their gazes as their tongues slipped together.

“I love you Hermione. I can’t change what I did to you before, but I can make up for it…I’ll make up for it every day.”

She kissed him again and he pulled at the sheet, untucking the edge and letting it fall to the floor between them. Breaking away he slid down to his knees in front of her, pressing his lips to her rib cage, her belly, the little bumps of her hip bones. With a sigh she sunk her hands into his hair and stepped her legs apart, giving him access that he gladly took. His fingers slipped through her wetness and she moaned her appreciation, pushing against his long fingers.

“What do you want? Tell me what you want,” he said, circling her clit with the pads of his fingers. “Tell me how to make you feel good. It’s all I want.”

Already her legs were starting to tremble, but she wanted more. All. Everything.

“You…your mouth. Lick…”

Without a second’s hesitation he flicked his tongue between her legs, right at the delicious spot where his fingers had been. It was a sight that nearly pushed her over; Draco Malfoy knelt in front of her with his tongue in her pussy, his eyes, crystal clear, staring at her, staring into her, watching as she bucked and whined, her hands in his cornsilk hair. Pausing only for a moment, he moved to push her back onto the low coffeetable, spreading her legs and kissing the tender skin of her inner thighs.

“More,” she moaned, falling backwards onto her elbows. “Please.”

They were the entire world just then, only the small wet sounds of his tongue lapping at her slick cunt and her shallow, shaking breath as he brought her closer to ecstasy. He never wanted to look away from her, the wide, dark pupils of her eyes as she watched him work, her mouth fallen open, lips kiss swollen and rosy pink. A flush bloomed from her cheeks to chest as she bucked against his mouth, but he didn’t want her to come like this. He didn’t want her to come yet. Tasting her, feeling her slick, satiny heat made him long to sink inside her again, to feel her whole body pressed against him as they joined. Slipping out of his joggers he moved to sit on the sofa, holding a hand out to her.

“Come here,” he said softly, stroking his length with his other hand. “I want to watch you.”

She straddled his thighs and sunk down onto him, smiling at how his eyelids fluttered, his breath a stuttering sigh as she took him in. Before they started moving together he gathered up her hair and brushed it back over her shoulders, gently pulling her face down to kiss her mouth. Hermione rolled her hips, moaning at the way his thick length filled her.

“Look at me,” he said, when she threw her head back and closed her eyes.

Doing as he asked, she wrapped her arms around his neck as he thrust up into her. Together they found a slow, languorous rhythm, breathing each other’s air, watching each other feel. Hermione’s hand moved to the nape of his neck, tangling into his hair as his hands ran the length of her back.

“I love you,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her jaw, the scar beneath her eye. “I was a fool to hurt you before and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t…” she didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want apologies. She just wanted him to stay inside her, to fill her, to keep thrusting against that incredible spot deep inside her. Again she closed her eyes, tried to focus on how he felt, but again he spoke to her in the darkness, never missing his rhythm although his voice was strained and breathy.

“Look at me. I want you,” he said, thrusting deeper, holding her tight to his chest, their foreheads pressed together, skin warm and damp with sweat. “I’m not going to leave you. We aren’t new people. You’re not Lilac. You’re Hermione.” His words were panted against her mouth as his breath came short, each phrase of his declaration peppered with grunts and growls of arousal. He kept one hand on the back of her neck, driving her down on to his cock as his hips snapped upward. “I’m Draco. It’s not going to change when we leave this cottage. It’s not going to change when we go home.”

She kissed him; hard and deep as her walls clenched around him. Her orgasm began its slow pulsing wave in her belly and she cried out into his open mouth as it crashed through her, digging her fingers into his back.

“I’m yours now, Hermione,” he said, driving into her one last time as he released inside her, every muscle in his body tensing, run through with the electricity of his climax. A few moments passed before he could speak again but when he did, he held her steady gaze. “I’ve waited so long to make you mine.

She rocked into him in the last throbbing waves of their ecstasy, limbs tangled, warm skin slipping together, heated breath on each other’s lips. They’d been this close before, only hours before; Draco inside her, her head swimming with bliss. But now it was different. This time their eyes were wide open.

 


End file.
